January 12, 2008
This morning I followed my usual routine. I drank my two cups of coffee then turned on my computer. I went directly to my local news and weather. After that, I pulled up CNN.com and read all their new stories. Then to Fox News.com and read all theirs. From there, I turned on my TV and checked out CNN, then over to Fox News to see what they were talking about. Finally I searched for news stories in other on line credible publications. My typical early morning routine, seven days a week, before I move on to my other plans for the day.
While watching Fox News on TV this morning, it hit me! It suddenly donned on me that most of the stuff I had read on Fox News.com and was hearing on Fox News this morning reminded me of what I had read in a supermarket tabloid in the grocery store two days ago while I was waiting in the check out line. At first, I thought this had to be just a coincidence. Surly I had just read or heard something this morning that jogged my memory about a particular tabloid article I had read at the grocery store. So I started back over again with my routine (minus the coffee and my computer is still up). Noooo, it didn’t seem that way. So I started looking back over some past notes, saved files I have, and pulling up some stuff from Fox News.com achieves. By the time I was finished, all questions were answered; by and large, when Fox is not bashing the Democrats and/or praising the Republicans, they report on “tabloid” stories, occasionally interrupted by a genuine meaningful news story.
I begin to ask myself why Fox would adopt this policy for their “fill-in” between Democrat bashing. That, too, immediately became obvious; these kinds of stories grab people’s attention. Even though most of us don’t believe them, or at the very least know the stories have to be questioned, we just can’t turn away once they’ve caught our attention. Smart; very smart! If you continuously got “attention getters” people will not turn away, therefore minimizing the amount of real and meaningful news that we are getting.
As I pondered these facts a little more, my mind began to wonder back over the past few years when I would be around some Fox News diehards who were engaged in idle chit-chat. Sooner or later, without exception, one would say “did you see that report on Fox about the woman who had three legs and one arm?” And the others would say, “Yea ain’t that weird?”
Obviously, Fox has never reported on a woman with three legs and one arm (not that I know of), but you get my point. Fox is nothing more than an electronic tabloid to keep your attention while they are preparing their next disinformation story.
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