Embargo on both Fox and MSNBC

After considering the present extreme leftist posture of MSNBC and the extreme rightist posture of Fox News, my wife and I have decided that these networks are banned from our house.  If CNN advocates releasing Pollard they will be banned as well. pl 

Comments

[Jackie]

Col.,
Did Fox and MSNBC both advocate for releasing Pollard? I don't watch Fox but would have to shun MSNBC if they did.

Why do people want that traitor released? I know, he only spied for Israel, as if that makes it better.

[dan of steele]

PressTV has been running with a story that Netanyahoo is going to pressure the US to release Pollard.

sounds like a done deal to me. I wonder why Obama could not have capitulated earlier. might have saved everyone a lot of trouble.

[CK]

You will be amazed how much better informed you will become once you have eliminated those three entertainment channels from your home. 'Tis a shame that cable/directv/FIOS customers cannot get al a carté purchasing ain't it.
Dropping your local daily fish wrapper will also improve your knowledge and outlook.

[shepherd]

They've all been banned from my house too, including CNN--although that one for a different reason. Extremely low ratio of information per viewing hour.

The question I'd pose everyone here is, where to get the news?

[Omo Naija]

I did same without realizing. My wife made a comment yesterday - you dont watch the news (MSNBC; had given upon FOX and CNN) anymore.

I was just tired of the nonsense aired by all the stations.

I get more info listening to archive of This American Life, Radiolab, Planet Money, Soccer podcast.

[Medicine Man]

Kudos. Watching any of them makes me crazy.

[Laurie]

Shepherd, I'd advise to get your news from multiple sources - NYT, WashPo, NPR, London Times, Economist, etc. I stopped watching any network/cable news long ago. It drives me nuts.

[Jackie]

Omo,
This American Life has some great stuff. I'm much better informed about ADM price-fixing, the financial fall out and who's to blame and on the island of Nahru. Go figure.

[Cold War Zoomie]

CNN ain't much better than the other two.

I never understood how you could stomach any of them every day. I resemble Chief Inspector Dreyfus after five minutes.

[Fred]

If Julian Assange were an Israeli citizen would our government be shutting down wikileaks?

[poicephalus]

Col.
I watch "news" on Al Jazeera, among others. But, I wouldn't wan't it for background noise.

Merry Christmas.

C
'81

[Charlemagne]

Has any one else noticed that, excepting the three network broadcasts at 6:30 pm., it is virtually impossible to find "straight news" programming at all, despite the increasing number of channels? Does it not seem that what people want to watch is -- their own opinions being "confirmed" and "valorized" by being reflected back at them --"As Seen On TV!"??

[Stanley Henning]

I'm proud to say that I never even signed up for cable TV - generally worthless. And I cannot say that any of our regular news broadcasts are really worth watching. I am really fed up with all this meaningless tripe!
Is this the America I felt I was part of earlier in my life? It may never have existed, but it clearly does not now!

[Spafford]

Hmmm, something seems to be catching on Col PL's blog. Many off us are switching off the tube. I have tended to switch to selective NPR and BBC broadcasts. I have found the discourse on Diane Rehm's 10 to noon civil and evenhanded-at least much more so than the talking-shouting heads. Then there is NPR's Car Talk. 1 hr of Click and Clack" entertains and provides more practical info than 7 days of 24 hrs via TV. Maybe I should crawl into a cave with my FM radio!

[PirateLaddie]

Oh G*d -- that's all we need, Jon-boy living in the West Bank, amongst those of his tribe who have as much use for liberty as he does! I only hope such an eventuality is in keeping with Biblical prophecy and will finally allow us to close the book on the Zionist experiment!

[The Moar You Know]

While I cannot but applaud your decision, and frankly hope that you pull the remaining networks as well (they are nothing but propaganda funnels with the sole aim of turning Americans into unthinking slaves) I would say that MSNBC is, at best, centrist with two hours of very, very lukewarm left-wing content.

And one of those hours is Keith Olbermann, the most insufferable human being on the planet.

But at any rate, you need to spend a few years living in California's Bay Area to get to know what real leftists look like, sound like, and believe. America does not hear those voices in the media - not ever.

And yes, I'm one of those "extreme leftists", or at least so considered anywhere else save the Bay Area. Heck, I've been called a conservative there. Having been raised in a conservative part of our great nation, that made me laugh, which hurt the feelings of the smelly hippie that had hurled the "epithet" at me.

[Ael]

I recommend Al Jazeera English for a news channel.

[Different Clue]

Because of my strange work schedule (3:30pm to midnight) and the fact that I still hang around after work on the computers (though not as much because I have been warned); I don't get to watch as much TV as I otherwise would.

I imagine PBS Lehrer news hour might still be good for some things. FrontLine, Nova, and some other PBS shows seem worthwhile to me.

Rolling Stone has been allowing Matt Taibbi and some others to do some valuable investigative reporting lately. If Rolling Stone were to assign some of its people to start a "real newspaper" with perhaps Matt Taibbi being its working Editor In Chief to set the news direction and newsroom culture; would enough people buy it to make it pay? They could call it the
Rolling Newspaper.

I get a little monthly newsmagazine called Acres USA. It is mainly agriculture-focused but it does have some articles and/or interviews about politics, economics, health-affairs as relate to both agriculture and the broader political economy which agriculture has to live within. They only have about a 10,000 person circulation but I think they deserve far more. They do have a website and will even send out a single free copy to people who want to see if they want to subscribe. They are the newspaper through which I heard and read about Phillip
Callahan.
http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/nbbw.cgi

[BillWade]

I haven't watched them for years now, any of them. I get my news from the web via "news aggregators".

[R Whitman]

Since I am a dirty old sexist man, I enjoy the plastic, blond news honeys and money honeys on cable and satellite television. They are much more entertaining than ESPN and at times, rival HBO.

These networks sell entertainment, not news.

[par4]

There is NO extreme 'left' on ANY major media in this country.

[William R. Cumming]

HUFFPO may well pass NY Times in readership this year!

[CK]

Al Jazerra TV is available on Direct TV for about half an hour in the evenings on LINK TV channel.
Xinhua news covers the east as does Asia Times ( both online).
The WSJ's reportage has not yet been fully deprecated, its editorials are still hooey.
For continental news and the occasional interesting colonial piece, the BBC online is adequate, their BBC America is neocon heaven with a pommy lisp. Deutsche Welle is superb.
It might take a week of reading and tweaking to set up an RSS feed for yourself that will give you unfiltered, up to the instant, news.
In January, the Onion News Network is coming to basic cable. A truthiness devoutly to be wished.

[PS]

Every once in a while, when a sporting event has pre-empted our local news at 10 p.m., my wife and I will turn to CNN in the vain hope that there will actually be "news" on the air. Even though the channel guide says "Headline News," it's usually some talking head blathering on about a non-event. The ticker at the bottom of the screen is the only way to find out what happened in the world. We usually turn it off after a few minutes and log onto the internet.

What I long for on cable is the BBC World News or the CNN Headline News you get abroad, which is generally straight news on a half-hour cycle.

[shepherd]

Laurie,
For the time-challenged, I'd also add The Week. It summarizes all of the news and talking-head babbling into about an hour of reading.