Spoon Fed

I watched network news last night on TV. I do this fairly often to keep my finger on the “pulse of America”. I bet most people in the U.S.A. get their national news from ABC, NBC, or CBS. It is fun stuff, but, unfortunately, closer to a glossy celebrity magazine than a real news program. There is very little news in network news. We hear stories but we don’t get many facts.
For instance, network news has taught me almost nothing about the proposed national health plan. Instead of reporting, the networks like to take polls, as if knowing what people think or feel is the same thing as knowing what something is. Last night, according to CBS News, 22% of the people polled think the health plan will help. 27% of them think it will hurt. But how many actually know anything about the proposed plan? If CBS asked that, they might feel partly culpable in their viewer’s ignorance.
I have long suspected network news is influenced by advertisers. Last night, watching the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, I decided to record who their advertisers were. The first few minutes of news put me on autopilot and by habit I muted the ads and went into the kitchen for 2 minutes and 30 seconds, before remembering my duty. During the remaining news I saw ads for prescription drugs: Chantix (anti-smoking), Levitra (erectal dysfunction) and Trilopix (cholesterol); non-prescription drugs: GasX, Benadryl, and Excedrin PM; food products: Activia (yogurt) and Smucker’s and two non-health related products: Chase banking and Publisher’s Clearing House. So 60% of the advertisements were for drug products. The question which begs to be asked of CBS is “Who’s your daddy?”
Drug company profits would surely take a hit with any health care reform. Network news may be obeying a higher authority when they keep us in the dark. Between the ask-your-doctor ads (which sometimes have longer segments than news) it seems the networks are trying to convince us not to do anything. And there is one other benefit to not adequately covering the current health care story: they don’t have to hire a reporter to read the 1,018 page plan.

Go to this website to access the proposed health care bill and to have the myth debunked that it provides money to kill our seniors. http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2009/07/27/health-care-bill-page-425-the...