|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
My hearing aid batteries are getting weakI would have been much more concerned if you said that you had heard what Lord Acton said, as it would mean that you are more than twice the age you claim to be! 
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 1,094 |
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
"Liberty too can corrupt, and absolute liberty can corrupt absolutely" - Getrude Himmelfarb
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Gertrude Himmelfarb was right, if she was talking about using obscenities.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
|
|
Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
> But that's not the worst possible thing about TV news reporting. I hope and pray that no U.S. president will ever again be assassinated, or otherwise die in office. I could not go through another 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week obsession with reporting on that and every possible ramification to the exclusion of virtually everything else, and going over and over the same stuff until you want to scream.
Of course we had virtually a whole week of Diana, so I sympathise. Sad as I was, the wall to wall news reporting didn't help. My partner in life was in the USA for coverage of the bomb that went off in Oklahoma. He was amazed at the highly repetitive and intrusive coverage which went on for days and days.
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
|
|
old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
> ....going over and over the same stuff until you want to scream.
Nobody makes you watch it! One way round it, is to avoid television completely. The mind-numbing repetiton of 'breaking-news' is not worth it, nor is television on the whole. Just throw out your T.V. or find five good reasons to keep it (teletext is not one :-)
uninformedruffian
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 116
member
|
|
member
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 116 |
'C' - first question: are you FROM Munich and if not, from where? I ask because of the name Betts (from your profile, of course) and the fact that I grew up knowing a Betts family who were/are good friends of my family and quite an interesting group! In reply to:
Nobody makes you watch it! One way round it, is to avoid television completely. The mind-numbing repetiton of 'breaking-news' is not worth it, nor is television on the whole.
About TV - here in Israel, we have only two non-cable Israeli channels (1 & 2 - very creative names, don't ya think?). They are different only in that Channel 1 is without adverts and Channel 2 is supported by adverts (so they overwhelm each program, of course). But the programming is very similar - lots of talk shows (Israelis love to talk and debate and scream and rant and carry on - especially about politics...), cooking shows, children's programming, and English-language sitcoms and dramas (from the US, Australia, UK). Channel 2 also buys from HBO, so we get, for instance, "Sex & the City" on the regular channel - but only late at night... not that that really means anything since Israelis are very open about sex and related issues.
Late at night, after Channel 1 goes off the air (around midnight), I can sometimes receive Palestinian TV - which is interesting, since most of its programming consists of Arabic-language talk shows in which the participants rant on about evil Israel and how important it is for them to just kill us all and get it over with.... in the daytime, they show their own version of Sesame Street (in Arabic) in which little children are shown sitting around learning from their adult teachers to songs about killing themselves while they kill Jews to become martyrs - by the way, this program is supported by American tax dollars!
I don't like cable, so I'm reduced to those two choices and occasionally, on a clear day, Jordan's TV channel (used to be a separate foreign language channel - mostly English but also French and now they've consolidated into one 24-hour/day 'superchannel' which, unfortunately, is mostly in Arabic...). Jordan TV is interesting as they also show American sitcoms and dramas - but they edit out any male-female contact, such as kissing and even, in some cases, handholding and so forth!
So - the answer for me is to watch the schedule and turn it on a bit before the program I intend to watch - otherwise, I keep it off and enjoy either music on the radio (I prefer jazz, swing, oldies rock & roll and such) or just listen to the quiet (when I can't hear the shooting and shelling and resulting ambulance sirens these days).
Shoshannah
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400 |
Oh, Jo, you are so right, most US coverage is repetative, and boring--and the best solution is to avoid it as much as possible.
I recognize that i have this deep seated anti-anglosaxon bent-- I try to keep it check-- and not let it influence me-- (but i always thing bloody brits!) But inspite of that-- i try to read the economist. Its not perfect-- but it, unlike most US "new weekly" acutaly covers the world--
US news and world report-- is pretty short on the world report part-- and news in general in US is covers as--"Plane crashes-- 3 americans killed, detail to follow-- and the details are jumbo jet crashes into school, or hospital or what ever-- but the lead is 3 americans killed---and it there had been no americans aboard, it might not make it to TV news!-- the times (NY Times) is a bit better, it actually acknowledges there is world beyond the US borders.
Most TV station (ie the big three, CBS, NBC, and ABC) no longer even have foriegn corespondants-- and use BBC stringers, or independant news organization reporters.
and as for the weather! the US is a big geographic mass-- there is always interesting weather going on somewhere, and it always makes the news--
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Wasn't it Mark Twain who said:"Everybody talks about the news, but nobody does anything about it."
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Max enthused Here in NZ, our two major fre-to-air-broadcasters give pretty decent coverage of the outside world, probably because if they did not, they would never fill their 48 minute hours.
Being a news junkie, I take at least SOME issue with what my compatriot says above. Generally we get about half an hour of local (including Oz) news and then quarter of an hour to twenty minutes of international news, including REALLY interesting "cat up tree rescued by firemen" type topics. (Why they bother beats me - have you ever seen a cat skeleton up a tree?) The rest is sport.
To top up, I find myself watching or taping the BBC, NBC and ABC plus current affairs programmes sourced from overseas, as well as scanning the newspaper websites on the Internet. To supplement our lamentably parochial newspapers, I subscribe to Time (although its quality is going downhill fast) and read the UK newspapers at our local fish and chip shop!
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
|
|
|
|
|
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
|
|
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,409 |
Being a news junkie, I take at least SOME issue with what my compatriot says above. Generally we get about half an hour of local (including Oz) news and then quarter of an hour to twenty minutes of international news,Once again, Max has demonstrated his failure to grasp the arcane concept of clearly communicating thought content. What I meant to say, was that NZ TV had quite good non-local coverage when measured against ABC's World News Tonght, the only US news show I see on a regular basis. As much as I enjoy listening to Peter Jennings, it does seem that "World News" is something of a misnomer for that bulletin, as its amount of non-US news makes the 20-25% non-local content in our news look very good. On a related note, I was horrified and very angry to read yesterday that TVNZ is dumping its link with BBC World. No more Hardtalk, no more real world news  . If I didn't have acess to this internet thingy I would be even more of an ignorant buffoon than I am.
|
|
|
|
Forums16
Topics13,913
Posts229,322
Members9,182
| |
Most Online3,341
Dec 9th, 2011
|
|
|
0 members (),
517
guests, and
0
robots. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
