Take News Commentators, PLEASE

Take News Commentators, PLEASE
by
Robin Hall


I cannot understand why Hardball and its ilk are so popular. This sort of show seems to usually be mean-spirited Republicans, from religious backgrounds, pablum-izing news of the day for less intelligent folks.

The commentators get some pretty fabulous salaries to do this too. Essentially, in my view, they are a news version of a preacher.

The audience is likely to made up of churchgoers who are used to having much of their lives spoon fed to them from the pulpit. No one has to think for themselves about how to run their own lives.

The preachers tell the congregation how and what to think: what is OK in the way of birth control, abortion and most social issues etc.

And is it any wonder the world's population is so out of control? The catholic church needs to work on this.

Religionists are just used to not needing to think for themselves on science either. I mean really, creationism?

Along come the news commentators. They do EXACTLY as the preachers so their flocks don't have to think either.

Hmm. I am suspicious. Has the church taken over this segment of the news and neglected to tell anyone?

Now I like news shows at times. In the UK people like Peter Jennings are called newsreaders. He was my favorite here. He was a host and newsreader for the evening news.

His sort had usually been in the field as reporters first. They get a promotion to the nightly news, make more money and give us a focused version of the day's happenings from the standpoint of a field reporter.

I was there sort of thing. And they were. Maybe a different disaster, war etc. but they were there.

CNN has dozens of these highly trained and competent reporters on staff. Fox news does too as do the major networks.

How many of the news commentators were there? Did anyone ask them? Does anyone care?

There are other sorts of news programs that are useful.

Nightline gave us extended news. It was not pablum. It was longer stories of pertinent news.

Another kind of news is highly trained interviewers expanding the news by going to the source. They usually keep their egos in check and tease out news that no one else might know of. There are several fine interviewers on Sunday morning for instance.

These interviewers and news readers perform a service for us. They give us news and let us make up our own minds.

News commentators usually DO have an agenda, don't want us to think and their egos are often the only reason they even have a show. Perhaps they really are just news preachers.

There are other sorts of news and views shows on TV and radio. I particularly appreciate the interviewing skills of Larry King. Here is a fellow who gets the widest range of guests of anyone on TV. He can almost disappear, ego-wise, and draw out interesting things from about anyone.

Has anyone noticed however that so many of the commentators and interviewers have seriously shady dealings from time to time, sort of like TV preachers?

'Nuf said.