While I agree that John Tierney is a total knob, I think he’s actually on to something when it comes to the depictions of violence – and I would include militarism – on television.
How many people here watch The Learning Channel? Do you remember, just a few short years back, that there used to be shows on archeology, on the arts, on science? You know, quiet little shows which were ideal for puttering away a rainy afternoon, and you would actually learn something along the way.
Now what do we have? Well, lets take a look at tonight’s lineup on the “new Learning Channel”:
8:00PM “Sports Disasters” – A show about, yes, you guessed it, sports disasters. I wonder if their doing a segment on the `62 Mets?
9:00PM “Overhaulin'”– A show in which a classic car is restored, or destroyed, depending upon your perspective.
10:00pm “Rides” – Yet another freakin’ car show, this time devoted to tattoos, in an oblique segue even I can’t figure out.
You folks can see any o’ that there learnin’ goin’ on here? I sure don’t, unless you want to learn which parts of the country to avoid.
And this lineup is typical. It’s all cop shows, military shows, emergency room shows, how-to shows, etc. The only science programs one sees are always in some way related to putting a nice glossy image on corporate America. Just yesterday I watched a “documentary” on what a great company Caterpillar is. Honest, they’re great! Did you guys know what a great fucking company Caterpillar is? Why, let’s bulldoze the whole fucking planet!
Anyway, you get my point. We’re being desensitized. Purposefully. Tierney’s quite right, only for all the wrong reasons.
Oh, and though Giuliani’s idea of withholding police blotter information had a positive effect on the tawdriness of the local evening news, it was still government censorship. If news gathering organizations decided to come up with a way to tone down the violence without limiting access to such information – for those that want it, anyway – I’d be all for it.
As for the rest of us, we should write letters to the Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, History Channel, et al, and tell them how dissatisfied we are with their drift into tabloid stupidity over the last ten years.
I realize that this isn’t a life-and-death issue, but this country’s rightward creep seems to be taking place on all fronts, so every skirmish is important.
Here are a couple of helpful links:
http://www.discovery.com/utilities/about/contact.html
http://www.historychannel.com/global/feedback/index.jsp?NetwCode=THC
Thanks for reading.
I completely agree. I was a regular viewer of Discovery Channel, etc. because I felt like I learned something while being entertained. Nowadays it hurts to turn the TV on at all. Thankfully I have blogs to consume my spare time. Thx for the diary, hope you’ll post more!
reasons why I changed my cable service from 800 digital channels to basic service. I only have that because it gives me better reception and a second PBS station. What passes for “news” is bad for my blood pressure. Inane sitcoms and cop shows we’ve always had, but “Reality TV” is almost as scary as what’s happened to our so-called news. As you point out, the channels that once had some substance have degenerated to unwatchable.
And I’m not too sure about PBS anymore.
Tierney, as you say, is a knob. He raises a valid question – but it’s an old question. And he couches it terms of “reporting on all these suicide bombers is interfering with the reporting of how life in Iraq is really not so bad.”
Where he should go with that – but of course does not – is to ask what real journalism would look like. For reporters in Iraq, what if reporters did stories on what life is like for ordinary Iraqis – not just explosions on the one hand or soldiers painting schools on the other, but what about the unemployment? Electrical and water services? What’s happening in the universities there? How has life for women changed? How about some real reporting on the new Iraqi government, and how most Iraqis feel about it? Do most Americans have any clue who these various groups involved in the new government are? The politicians? Their history? Their positions and proposals? Why not? Could it be that journalists and their editors can’t be bothered with such “boring” stories?
It all comes down to the “media” no longer having any sense of their responsibility to inform the citizenry – our founding fathers vision of the role of the press. Now, there is no “press” in that sense on television, and less and less in print. It’s just about selling ads (or finding “sponsors” on public TV) and making a profit. Too bad Tierney didn’t bother to think about this issue in a deeper way. But then, I’m having some trouble with the op-ed page of the NYTimes these days, too (except for Krugman and Herbert, of course).
Having to put up with Brooks and Tierney is more than any civilized human being should have to endure.
Noam Chomsky would have to be given his own prime time news magazine in order to compensate.
Never read them.
I’m moving more and more to Indy media.
There’s not much of that on tv, I admit.
Then there’s the Hitler, er History, Channel.
I’m an unabashed advocate of DISH satellite. Besides the fact that it doesn’t fail like cable does occasionally (or a lot in Seattle), it offers some great alternative programming.
Free Speech TV: http://www.freespeech.org
— lots of daily news shows, including Democracy Now! and INN World Report and International Dateline
— lots of documentaries
LINKTV: http://www.linktv.org
— also lots of daily news, DN! + Mosaic (its Peabody-winning 1/2 hour Middle East news show) + Journal (a daily news show from Germany)
— lots of documentaries + dramas from other countries + world music (with videos)
UCSB: I forget that URL but it’s the Univ of Calif. Santa Barbara station where I’ve found some great talks.
PBSU: Repeats of some PBS shows but more including university classes. One night I caught classes taught by Philip Zimbardo, the great prof. of psychology at Stanford
If every American had regular access to these channels, it’d be a different country. I know it.
And DISH is adding a lot of international programming. They already have Chinese, Japanese, Arab, Indian and other programming. New ones include Italian programming. Those are for an extra fee.
If anyone ever switches to DISH, let me know because I can get a credit for it.
I hate television but I know people are addicted to it.. but I like your line “if everyone had these channels, America would be a different place”.
If I were given a magic wish, it would be to knock all the channels off the air except C-Span 😉
Now THEN we would have a different country! 🙂
Pax
This must have happened with new leadership – anybody know?
Even A&E has serious issues – I enjoy Biography ever once in a while. Sometimes I fall asleep and wake up to “Dog The Bounty Hunter” (I think that’s what it’s called).
I think we need to start a campaign to rid ourselves of the stations we don’t want. Why the hell should we give them our money, when it’s HBO or MSNBC (or ?) that we want. Any ideas?