Winners and Losers

I am very s-l-o-w-l-y starting to watch television news again and tuning in (for now) to PBS, though the announced dissolution of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting may impact my future choices. I guess I am exceptionally obtuse, as I really never noticed the 'woke' agenda and leftist bias of The Newshour and/or All Things Considered, but then again, I don't get out much anymore.

And it's that (overt) assumed pre-defined bias one way or the other that I'm confronted by with commercial over-the-air/cable news providers. Maybe it's the devolution, started in the Seventies, when news divisions went from being a public service in the public interest, per the Federal Communications Commission, to today's yet another profit center for a corporate conglomerate whose core business more than likely has nothing to do with news or public affairs

Now, when I watch, the part that most bothers me is how seemingly every story is reduced to a 'Who won? Who lost?' aspect of the coverage of whatever the story actually is. For every word offered as an attempted explanation of intent and impact, I'm getting hundreds of words on how one side is such and such, and the other is so and so.

Don't Touch that Dial!

I thought we were in this together. 
We weren't? I missed that memo.

So the guys with the button-down shirts got the better of those with the Oxford collars? And all this time, I thought we were trying to clothe everyone. How can we have an outside when there's no inside, or insight, come to think of it? The reports from Dodge City Deliberations and Machinations most nights look more like Seuss' Star-Bellied Sneetches than reasoned discussion and debate for the good of the republic and those who live in it.

And instead of explaining what is going on and why, we get treated to hours of handicapping a horse race that doesn't actually have horses (okay, maybe the rear ends of horses). We have to be content with the politics of posturing and pandering that leave us all just a little unclean and in need of a shower. Pass the soap, but don't dare drop it.

Makes me wonder what we'd look like as a country if the same 'for me to look good, you need to look bad' mindset had made the trip to Philadelphia for that weekend in July of 1776. Who wants to tell Washington we can't pay for that boat across the Delaware, and what was Franklin thinking of? Jefferson said he can go fly a kite.
Speaking of which, there's video of that right after the break, so don't go anywhere.
-bill kenny