This just in: I don’t know about you but there are certain things I have come to accept as normal. Mass shootings followed by “hopes and prayers” followed by increased gun sales is normal. Trump doing the exact opposite of what is the right thing to do in EVERY situation is normal. Republican’s hiding Trump’s Russian affiliations is normal. Fox News blathering absolute nonsense that is gobbled up by a large portion of our population is normal.
It’s become normal to me because I watch a lot of news and this is all I see.
Today I found myself wondering, “What would I like to see on the news?”
This gives rise to the question, “Is news supposed to be informational, educational or merely entertaining?”
I suppose a little of all three.
Here would be my programming:
- A segment on conflicts around the world. Who is fighting who and why.
- Something about entertainment
- A segment on advances in medicine.
- A segment on advances in technology.
- A good news story with maybe a puppy
- A segment that compares the current rating of the top 25 countries in the following categories:
- Math scores
- Science scores
- Cost of health care
- Quality of life
- Quality of the Democracy
- Work-Life balance
- Military spending
- Crime
- Economic growth
- I would sprinkle in some sports.
- There would be an international segment about places like Africa or Asia that covered things we don’t normally hear about.
- There would be a segment where political actions and statements are evaluated based on effectiveness and truth by an neutral third party like IBM’s Wilson.
- There would be section on national social issues like poverty, equality, racism, jobs, wages etc.
That all sounds like a good start.
I think its high time the people of the United States realize that we are quickly falling behind the rest of the world in nearly every category except military spending and gun deaths.
A good dose of reality television that showed the truth of our ongoing fall from the top of the heap may be what we need to make us take action to reverse this trend.
Time to save the world.
Up, up and away…
Jim
