Sometimes I really dislike U.S. News About This Page:

[Teresa]

Actually, most of the time. There is almost never any international news, and frequently nothing but fluff pieces about "Personal Interest Stories" and not NEWS!

Today was really tragic - I was watching BBC International at 5 AM, and they reported that one of the kids that man in Alabama (US), said he threw off the bridge, was found - - in the water. It does appear that that's what happened. Then, I watched both CNN and the local news, and there was no mention of it!!
How could they NOT report that? The local news was the worst - OMG! It's all about "The Colts are playing what may be their last play-off game at the dome!" oh, that's important (she types with sarcasm)

[scottjs]

Teresa, I completely agree!!! The question is what to do about it.

[CelticChick]

I usually love watching our coverage of Fox News, but sorry, I am getting a bit bored now of all the campaigning that Hilary Clinton and the rest are doing. Having said that, I do like to watch Steve and Brian in the morning if I am not working!

[graygables]

Hubby and I were talking about this (and other things) last night. Since inception, the United States has been about profit. In general, Americans care more about money/wealth/success than anything else. The rest of the Western world has a social conscience that in general, Americans do NOT have, a sense that there is a duty to care for the downtrodden rather than a "get a job and your problems will vanish" attitude. Because of that, American media is a profit-driven machine. It profits most from stories about sex, sports, and politics because that is where they get the majority of their support/funding and that is what most people are interested in reading/hearing about.

My Dad has always read the International Herald Tribune (International Herald Tribune - World News, Analysis, and Global Opinions) because it seems to have a broader view and not so much hype and I've started using it as my main news source as well.

[Disney_Scarlett]

I, too, get tired of all the fluff stories. I appreciate the effort to make the news not-so negative, but do I really need to see coverage of a hot dog eating contest?

[Jookiba]

All I know is if I hear one more certain name of a member of the Spears clan I'm going to literally go insane. She obviously doesn't want (or care) to help herself; she keeps doing what she's doing for attention, and unfortunately I feel that her life is going to come to a tragic end because of her undiagnosed mental issues that she refuses to seek help for.

God bless her boys is all I can say.

[Nimros]

Originally Posted by scottjs

Teresa, I completely agree!!! The question is what to do about it.

Don't watch the mainstream news!

Thank goodness for the Internet and alternative news sources. In fact, I try and get my US news from foreign media if possible.

[MelissaL]

I'm frequently upset because the US media reports too many disturbing stories. It seems the only stories on our local news are crimes, sports, and bad weather (actual or possibly upcoming), with the order varying by season.

I'm surprised CNN didn't have the story you mentioned, because it seems that every time I look at CNN.com I see a story about a child dying or seriously injured. I switched to ABCNews.com for a while, but they seem to have increased their number of "puff" pieces, and I haven't found another site I like better. Maybe I'll try the Herald Tribune or the BBC.

Melissa

[Nala]

CNN is always on in our house, and Saturday morning I saw a little coverage of one of the children's bodies being found in the water as well as coverage of the four children who died in a house fire along with their parents who were both found with stab wounds. I couldn't take hearing any more about such horrible stories so I changed the channel to another national news station.

And what was on it? The story about a woman, who last year killed her three year old autistic daughter, coming to trial. That woman lived and killed her daughter in a town nine miles from me.

And while I was getting a bit overwhelmed with the reports of such horrible things, what I saw next made me shake my head and say WTH?

The station acutally reported, and made a big deal about, Hanna Montana using a double during one of her concerts.

Would someone please tell me why this is news worthy and who it even matters to?

With all that is going on in our world, both good and bad, I will never understand the need for such nonsense to be headline news!

[snoozin]

I just get frustrated because it's so hard to find out more about subjects I'm interested in... Usually there's a couple paragraphs, and then I can't find where to delve into it more.

[chezp]

We always say the same thing whenever we visit. We can't believe how much focus there is locally, with very little nationally, never mind internationally. We've been amazed by the stories that the networks miss - and equally amazed by the bizarre stories they do pick up from abroad.

[joyjoy]

Originally Posted by graygables

Hubby and I were talking about this (and other things) last night. Since inception, the United States has been about profit. In general, Americans care more about money/wealth/success than anything else. The rest of the Western world has a social conscience that in general, Americans do NOT have, a sense that there is a duty to care for the downtrodden rather than a "get a job and your problems will vanish" attitude. Because of that, American media is a profit-driven machine. It profits most from stories about sex, sports, and politics because that is where they get the majority of their support/funding and that is what most people are interested in reading/hearing about.

I completely agree with this. I cannot STAND the local news. They report nothing but shootings and robberies, and then pay reporters to follow cops and firefighters into strip clubs, in the name of "Investigative Reporting". Whatever. The national news is not much better. Usually about 7 minutes are used to cover major stories, then the rest of the time is spent on stupid crap that nobody should care about. It's just embarassing when we have foreign visitors that notice how ridiculous our "news" is.

[SouthernBelle]

The story about the man from Bayou Le Batre, Alabama was all over the news here I live about 40 minutes from their, it is so sad. The local Mobile, Al staion cut into the football game and announced that they had found the childs body. Very tragic story, I feel for the mother of those poor children.

I do not like hearing about all the Pop Tarts with their histronics to get attention, their lives in and out of rehab, I can do without that. I too am getting bored with all the politics and the backstabbing that goes on during the campaigns,

Would someone please tell me why this is news worthy and who it even matters to?

[jimmymac]

Yes, we as a people are extremely ethnocentric. Very sad. This weeks most viewed onnthe network web sites will probably be OJ in court and Britney Spears. A major event like the rat stem cell heart will largely be ignored

[BostonTeaParty]

Originally Posted by chezp

We always say the same thing whenever we visit. We can't believe how much focus there is locally, with very little nationally, never mind internationally. We've been amazed by the stories that the networks miss - and equally amazed by the bizarre stories they do pick up from abroad.

One of the things I learned in my college journalism class, is that newspapers are in business to sell newspapers. They gear their writing to a fifth grade reading level to sell as many as possible. There is only a very small number of papers that don't do this. One of them is my favorite paper The Wall Street Journal. I actually once had an office mate make fun of me for reading it, alluding that I was putting on airs reading it. (Weird, I know.) Anyway, I started reading the occasional article out loud to her, and after a few days she said to me, "wow, there are a lot of interesting articles in that paper." She seemed so surprised.

Anyway, that is my long-winded way of saying that if you read most local papers, or watch TV news, you basically get the same stuff over and over. It has evolved into "Infotainment" and the reason is because, simply stated, it sells. It must be what most people want because the numbers support it. I stopped watching TV news years ago when my children were very young. It started out as a way of keeping disturbing images away from them, but then I realized that I wasn't missing anything except the same thing: murder, fires, and celebretards. All things I have no control over. As for news "weeklies" I couldn't recommend one as I don't read them.

The NY Times also has excellent national and international news analysis. The Times or The WSJ are my papers of choice. I also like the BBC and NPR. TV news? Fuhgedaboudit.