That's news to me

I live in a world that's a tenth of a square mile. Everything I interact with on a normal daily basis is within the confines of these walls. Sometimes, my interaction is limited between two buildings, barely even seeing the outside. As such, I hunger for news of the outside world. Now that's not to say we aren't wired for sound. (And satellite, and Internet for that matter) It's more of an issue of what's offered.

We have flat screen televisions in our DFAC (two of them in fact), and one in my particular office. They play non-stop. The one in my office occasionally has the news, but more often than not plays movies that are shown continuously on AFN (the Armed Forces Network). I'll discuss AFN in another post. The ones in the DFAC are continuously tuned to either ESPN sports center or the AFN command channel that broadcasts stories and snippets by the U.S. Military of particular interest to Afghanistan or this theater of operations. I'm not sure who decided (well yeah I do, it was the Command Sergeant Major) that ESPN was the only channel that would play while everyone ate, but I've never been so averse to watching sports in my life now. Most everyone else feels the same way, but I have a suspicion that this may be some sort of compromise.

What I mean by compromise is that we as a Military are required to publically be non-political. In order to watch a cable news channel, some will be offended by one slanted news station and others will take offense to a station with an opposite slant. The favorite targets are "Faux Ewes" and the "Communist News Network". In all honesty, I'll have to agree. So much of the "news" is not news at all, but commentary and opinion about politically divisive issues. Understandably that type of programming draws more viewers because of American's insatiable appetite for drama and conflict. Just research the phenomenon of reality TV.

To make things worse, in my office I've heard it said, "Can we change the channel? MSNBC is getting at liberal as CNN!" So what channel do we usually watch for news? Unbelievably, it's Al Jazeera. Honestly I'd just be happy if we could tune to the BBC.

All I want is to hear and watch the news. Unfiltered news of events and happening in the U.S. and around the world. I don't want filtered regurgitation with a political slant to attempt to sway me into believing a certain way because I have a brain and can make up my own mind with the facts presented as news should be. Unfortunately the American public, and most U.S. Service Members as a subset, don't want to think independently to make their own decisions. They want their information spoon fed to them in a nice partisan package with a slanted bow so they blindly follow without thought of being misled. You'd think that a logical argument would help people see the light of this type of manipulation, but then again a polarizing political opinion is news to them.

More to follow.