My generation -- or at least most of the wide-eyed, nervous, soda-addicted, insomniac populous that "My Generation" encompasses -- does not often watch the news. We've managed to grow up during an incredibly small window in history during which we learned to rely on tiny, texty gadgets that zip short, grammatically tragic messages from one person to another. These are our primary sources of information, even if the information we trade is mostly useless and almost completely nonsensical. Unfortunately for us I'm pretty sure this, as well as most reading, is about to be replaced by video screens implanted into your goddamn contacts or something. It took about four hundred years for Howdy Doody to supplant the Gutenberg Bible. Soon enough we'll all be getting our news directly from Youtube crotch shot videos.
But we 18-28r's don't tend pay much attention to CNN and such. For one thing, it can't be Twittered, and if you have flipped by the 24-hour news networks lately, you know that we're all apparently going fucking crazy for that shit.
Ever wanted to tweet with Wolf Blitzer? Of fucking course you haven't.
For another thing, news takes forever. Do you know they want you to watch those shows for like, an hour just to hear all of the news? That's valuable time you could be spending on something productive. Like Twittering.
I have to tell you people, you're really missing out. Remember how people used to talk about news broadcasters like they were heroes? When TV news meant something? No? Well, they did, especially guys like Walter Cronkite.
Look at this guy! He makes Hannity look like a coked-up spider monkey in a toupee.
This dude WAS the news. His breath even smelled like integrity. The strength of TV became instant dissimination of information, and Cronkite had the megaphone. He was essentially a real decent guy, too, so when he talked, you listened.
Now, however, we have the shrill harpies and idiot town cryers to report the news directly into our ears. Why? Because with your "Thousand channels and nothing's on" attitude, they have to do SOMETHING to get your attention.
So they'll do ANYTHING.
Including exploiting the dead!
It used to be that the news networks leaned more towards the whole "shining beacon of truth" thing. TV was news outlet number one, and most people -- ask your parents -- remember the most important events in that era of US history as they were reported on the news.
Now, however, the 24-hour news networks are like crowds of lawless zombie hobos. And you are wearing a bacon suit.
I bet you didn't even know it existed.
They'll do anything to get to you, too. Want an hour of Larry King devoted solely to UFO landings? Done. Same Nancy Grace topic four nights in a row? Done and done. Are you a lonely old crazy person with seven cats named after Confederate officers, a hump on your back and a penchant for antique gun collecting? They've got news for you. News so addicting, in fact, that you may neglect Little General Lee. Don't worry, they won't let you forget him -- they'll play plenty of cat food commercials. Plenty. And you should probably also get him some term life insurance.
It takes a rare breed, then, to become a voice so absolutely fucknuts that people who care admittedly very little (like, say, me) actually notice you're being offensive.
"The most used phrase in my administration if I were to be President would be 'What the hell you mean we're out of missiles?'"
--Actual Glenn Beck quote.
Glenn Beck is what happens when you fundamentally damage a 13 year old, reform him from a life of crime and then give him a microphone. Seriously. That's his life story. As a consequence of his hard luck and subsequent steps back into the light, Beck ends up having roughly the same amount of coherence as a Southern Baptist minister on a meth binge. Charmingly, however, he is about ten percent as tactful, which leads to hours of wacky entertainment for the "What'll he say next?" crowd.
Because whatever it is, it'll piss off somebody.
He is most well known for:
-- Calling the mother of a dead soldier a "Tragedy Slut"
-- Really, really despising Michael Moore
-- Belittling victims of Katrina
-- Hating the victims of 9/11 and their families
-- Equating embryonic stem-cell researchers to Nazi scientists practicing Eugenics
-- Procreating four times, thus increasing "Likely candidates for offspring of Satan" to 9
-- Generally being a cock-in-the-box.
And Beck ends up being just the tip of the iceberg. If watching the news in the 60's was like a cigarette break, in the 2000's it's like freebasing speed every fifteen minutes until your eyes pop out. Worse, it would be unfair of me to single out a network like Fox News, especially when their competitors put this thing on the screen:
I wonder if you can figure out her name.
I'm also sure that if you've watched even half a minute of any of these networks, you know all the major players. Each commercial break is a constant subliminal flash of names like Larry King, Anderson Cooper and Bill O'Reilly.
Pictured left to right.
And that's pretty much the way of things: The news networks are no longer selling you the news. Instead they're selling you anchors, who pretend to have both knowledge of every possible situation and a completely justified opinion no matter what -- despite the fact that you've probably heard more tolerant, thought-out arguments from your creepy uncle Bernie who lives in the mountains and has a confederate flag painted on the roof of his barn.
Seriously? You can find anything on the internet.
And he's probably a lot less frightening than looking at Nancy Grace.
