The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > And now for the news? > Comments

And now for the news? : Comments

By Alison Sweeney, published 18/7/2007

People are understandably losing interest in current affairs: television news sometimes borders on the farcical.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All
DEMOS, we (my nurse and myself) are locked in battle at the moment over the small matter of missing my medication. Imagine the fighting if I spent hours hunched over the keyboard 'surfing' as you suggest.

SBS news...I said I was bored with the news but I'm not that bored just yet.
Posted by Sage, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 12:17:11 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It's called news lady, like the weather it changes. Perhaps you should to. Come out of your 1960's "This is the BBC World Service" & move into 2007, where the news is delivered to my living room by a young attractive lady, who isn't preaching to me. Who cares if I'm not interested in it she looks good. If I want to find out what's wrong in the world I'll ask my father-in-law
Posted by SNS, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 12:50:26 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
My father used to say, the man in the street gets his information
from the daily tabloid.. (circa 1945). Well same for commercial stations, and I must say, recently, the ABC 2007. SBS is hanging in there by a thread.

Current Affairs' programs are not much better. Occasionally you will
get some work by John Pilger, and other expats.of like mind.

I mostly go to the internet these days and search for what I want to
know, not something some backroom producer gives me in a 1-minute grab on the TV screen. In any case, they pound us with pictures
in nanosec. grabs. We can do without the pics. For me, news is Words. The Independent media isn't doing a bad job, Long may they Live.

The Oz and SMH still have some comments worthy of reading, but when
I have read these, I go to the internet to see other views on the
same topic. Well, we educated the masses! Now we feed them
tripe. Nothing has changed. If we're going to oust the incumbent in our Fed. seat, the only way to go about it is, yes, door-knocking.
The voters certainly won't learn anything on the "news".
Posted by lesley, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 1:37:59 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
You say the nightly news sometimes borders on the farcical. Sometimes?

Thje ABC is as close as we have to actual news, local, national and international.

Commercial TV stations usually ignore international altogether except when there is someone ", A QLD nurse once met the person who made Princess Mary's dress" or similar tripe.

If you are dumb enough to watch commercial TV news you won't know most of what is happening as their agenda's exclude certain items and certain political stances.

When the ABC reports those issues they are accused of bias.

And please don't refer to those 2 schlock shows on the commercial TV stations as current affairs. They use the term but they might as well use the words farce, BS, repeat and simply, garbage. Nothing they cover is current affairs unless you count celebrity activities as news.

If you actually want news you have to watch Fox news and you will know the opposite of every single word is the truth.
Posted by pegasus, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 1:57:24 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I have been on bushwalking trips which separated me from civilisation for up to 2 months. No news at all. When I came back I found that I had not suffered from not knowing what was going on in the slightest. If you are addicted to the news or sport or the lives of celebrities, then you have been conditioned over time to be that way by the media business.
Posted by healthwatcher, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 2:08:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Commercial TV news and current affairs are an indistinguishable porridge (and about as appetising - apologies to our sponsor Uncle Toby). They bear as much similarity to real news as wanking does to real sex. Just as anything called "reality TV" bears as much similarity to real reality as... well, you get my drift.

Since nobody else has brought it up, yet further evidence of the above assertion is particularly apparent here in Victoria, where AFL "stars" occupy a substantial percentage of news (as distinct from sport) and current affairs stories; this is never because of their football prowess, but rather because of their, well, current affairs and other addictive problems. Remember Wayne Wotsisname and Ben Who? In the U.S.A. (remember our great and powerful friends?) politicians are regularly being outed for experiencing extramarital bliss. Seems that in Australia you have to be a sporting identity to attract that attention. Remember Warney?

I rather suspect this dumbing down of free-to-air TV might be something to do with attempting to get us all to subscribe to pay-TV from sheer desperation. Face it, folks: John Howard (remember John Howard?) said we can all afford pay-TV.
Posted by Genre, Wednesday, 18 July 2007 2:09:49 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy