Opinion: 24 Hour “News” Contributed To “This”

Amidst the troubling scenes on “that tube,” yesterday (ode to Paddy Chayefsky writing it and Peter Finch delivering it, in the oh so prescient film, “Network,” roughly 45 years ago) was in my opinion, one reason it got this crazy.

CNN which begot others, even worse, made a point it was the 40th anniversary of their beginning.

I feel pretty strongly, that we do not need the 24 hour “news” presented on these networks. 

Their presence is one reason, one of many, the country is so divided. 

They boasted of fair and balanced reporting. All things in life are relative and where has Albert Einstein gone?

Alas, trotting out former reporter Bernard Shaw, he of the inflammatory question of a hypothetical double violent act vs Michael Dukakis’ wife Kitty, at an ’88 presidential race debate, that all but assured “Bush over Dukakis,” certainly is not a good “poster,” for fair and balanced reporting.

Give me the CBS Evening News with Douglas Edwards any time.

That said, we all do need, as “Bread” asked in  “Make It With You,” to see “the other side,” and work from there. It is not easy, but few worthwhile things are. 

I have opinions, even strong ones about the “rest of it,” (Paul Harvey perhaps) but they are beyond my scope.

However, knowing about what must be done to have 24 hour networks and what manifests from it, I feel fine expressing my negative opinion, about the concept.

As for Mr. Shaw, who certainly does not need me to cite his career achievements, I am not the first to “? his ?” to Mr. Dukakis.