Half hour news program starts at 5:30. Besides 10 minutes of commercials, there will mostly be lots of local news. Some national news. Sports. then at 5:55 there will be this international news: "Yep, there's a world out there. Okay, after this commercial, we want to show some cute dog show clips"
Clearly I'm being snarky here...but not too far off (really!). The national news hours might give you a little more international news, mostly as these relate to the US...our wars, our efforts to help in natural disasters, natural disasters, etc. And so it goes...that's what an American hears, unless they are motivated to seek more info out elsewhere (like here at ET).
Am I inaccurate with this characterization? I don't think I'm too far off... "Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia
This wallpaper is the background radiation of daily life: news, music, celebrity, sport, corruption etc. It tempts the externalization of thought. It allows people to stop thinking by continuously amusing them. It also betlittles seriousness.
But the worst thing is that it creates an environment of soundbite jingoism that comes to replace discussion and debate. And that suppresses learning.
As John Cleese enthusiastically explained, as an earnest Blue Peter-type presenter "How to play the flute: you take a hollow stick with holes in it and blow through it while putting your fingers on some of the holes. Right. And next we'll be seeing how Fluffy the giraffe is getting on in his new home" Or words to that effect.
Too many of us are tourists in life, taking snapshots as evidence for our friends and family to prove that we have indeed visited interestng places - when in fact we have experienced nothing but the facile documenting.
I am not against the banality of life. I am actually rather fascinated by it. But it is the different banal experiences that are interesting. I don't need a photograph of my sitting outside a Rome cafe at 10am enjoying a perfect espresso. What I need is a conversation with baarista Vittorio about what goes into a perfect espresso - the coffee, the grind, the constant mechanical adjustments for outdoor temperature and humidity. Because I'd like to learn how to do such a banal thing perfectly myself, at home. You can't be me, I'm taken
First, the local news is a seperate show. Often two half hour shows back to back, with the second one being the traditional local nightly news, and the first one being a local "infotainment" show that calls itself a current affairs show.
On the main local news show is the local news, state news (regional news for some very small states), sports news, and weather. Its viewership, therefore, is much higher than the viewership of the national news.
The national news is half an hour, at most 22 minute of programming, starting with whatever the 24 hours news networks and the major newspapers have decided is the "breaking" story of the night. That can be followed by one or two follow up stories on that breaking news, espcially if it involves a missing little blond white girl or a big winter storm that will disrupt business travellors lives, and the less there is to say the more likely they are to have additional pieces.
Then comes a sound bite apiece from a republican and a democrat on something, then a magazine piece that shows that they care about the issues that matter in your everyday lives, then coverage from overseas if there is a war on or an American politician is visiting a place where they have stringers, then a piece in a human interest series, and then the dead donkey and its a wrap.
I would satirise it, as series of Australian comedy sketch shows satirised their nightly news, but American nightly news is self-satirising. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
