Television Today is Mostly an Embarrassment

Op-ed by TheWiseOldFart

 

Groucho Marx: “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

This was an observation from the early days of television. It was accurate. Over the next 70-80 years of television broadcasts, there have been a combination of great, good, interesting, bad, and recently with the obsession of “reality TV” an embarrassment to anyone who possesses average intelligence.

I was raised on television. By that I mean that my mother was a single parent, my brother and I were latching key kids, and our only source of entertainment was initially a nine-inch television. This was the early 1950’s and there wasn’t much to see. However, as time passed and our nation became obsessed with the “boob tube,” the early age of television began and I was very happy. I remain obsessed today, but also extremely disappointed.

As television expanded into numerous areas of entertainment, including sports, politics, cooking shows, shows which involved audiences including Jerry Springer, Oprah, Phil Donahue and others dominated the airways for decades. They were mostly harmless. They were considered entertainment.

The most popular shows in the most successful era of network television were westerns, sitcoms, medical dramas, and cop shows. However, the success of these broadcasts became costly as the prime characters, actresses and actors become central to the content, and demanded more money, the networks decided to create shows which were more profitable and appealed to a broader, often less-educated audience. These shows are now known as “reality television.”

I find most of these shows attack my intelligence. Does anyone not know that “The Housewives” shows have writers, a director, make-up artists, hairstylists, and other personnel, and nothing you see is real? The same is true for ridiculous shows like “The Bachelor,” and “The Bachelorette.”

However, the greatest travesty and insult to the American people is “television news.”

The ruination of news broadcasts began on June 1, 1980. CNN was launched, and Ted Turner’s brainchild began the end of news as I knew it. There were no Cronkites, Murrows, or Chancellors informing the American people of events around the world or your home state. There are not a sufficient number important events happening 24 hours each day. Desperate to maintain an audience, CNN, and those who followed sought more entertainment than real news. Today only about ten minutes of each hour is devoted to real news, and most of that is repetition.

If that wasn’t bad enough, in 1996, Rupert Murdoch, with the assistance of Republican strategist, Roger Aisles, launched a right-wing propaganda machine misnamed “FOX News.” Within weeks it was obvious that its true purpose was to divide our nation’s people. The Republican Party’s base remains in decline today.

Between 1981 and 1993 Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush destroyed our nation’s economy with their economic policy known as “trickle down economics.” Their philosophy of “take care of the rich and the rich will take care of the working class” failed miserably. Of even greater concern is the fact that Bill Clinton’s administration not only repaired our economy, they left office in 2001, leaving behind a surplus for our nation’s treasury for the first time in more than a decade.

None of this mattered to FOX. Although Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinski was an embarrassment for all America, the focus should have been on what he accomplished for our nation. This was not important to FOX because it was good news, something hated by the right-wing propaganda machine.

Here we are today. We are less informed than we were in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, in spite of the fact everything is instant today thanks to communication satellite filling outer space. The men and women who claim to be journalists on the evening news slant their words by selecting key phrases and photography. If that is difficult, they use facial expressions and body language to offer their personal opinions.

Television has a major effect on our elections. Our election period lasts 4-5 times longer than any other nation, and costs 10-20 times more than all other developed nations combined. The percentage of votes influenced by costly advertising rises every year. Thanks to these ads, money buys the votes of those who know nothing of substance about the candidates asking for your votes.

I love television. I watch broadcasts which entertain me. Therefore I never watch news broadcasts, I read. I enjoy sitcoms, crime dramas, the late-night talk shows, and the NFL. I refuse to be lied to, or made a fool of and therefore reject any show claiming to be “reality TV.”

By the way, the only reality broadcasts are sports. Every show not associated with a sport is scripted, choreographed, and edited.

Op-ed by James Turnage

Find my nine novels here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/James-Turnage/author/B00LOCJ2Z2?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true