24-hour news torture

Sometimes, just for the fun of it, I like to torture myself.

I can’t really explain it but sometimes I go to great measures to torture myself.

For example, sometimes I like to eat salads in efforts to lose weight, or see how long I can be at Kilroy’s Sports without having deep twisted homicidal thoughts, or go to church only to be reminded that the drinks I had last night are going to send me to hell and there’s not much I can do about it.

Perhaps my favorite and most frequent form of self-torture is my cheapest. All it requires me to do is turn to either CNN, MSNBC or Fox News.

Like most Americans, I like to know what is going on in the world. I like to be informed and engaged in the events and happenings around me.

To do this, logically I turn to news sources. I turn to multiple sources such as newspapers like the New York Times or the Chicago Sun-Times, or online sites like Huffington Post and Politico.

But an even more logical thing to do is turn to a 24-hour news station. I mean what can give me better, more up-to-date reports on events and happenings than a station that’s dedicated to covering nothing BUT news. Right?

The problem with that logic is that now days, as I watch the news, I realize that 24-hour news channels are to the news like the WWE is to “wresting.”

These days, to call what you see on Fox News or CNN “news” is pushing it at best. At any given time, I turn to either of the channels to get news.

Instead I get old, ugly, rich white men who are more out of touch with society than the politicians telling me what the American people are thinking and/or what I should think as an American.

Instead of getting good unbiased news, I have to listen to Glenn Beck telling me that everyone in Washington is out to destroy America and that Obama is a communist, or Ed Schultz telling me that ‘he’s crazy liberal and you should be, too!’

On top of all of this, I have people like Nancy Grace and Greta Van Susteren telling me about every kidnapping or slimy murder case in the country.

I have said multiple times that a healthy democracy cannot exist without a healthy media.

With that said, 24-hour news channels are the worst thing to happen to entertainment since Andrew Lloyd Webber.

When I think about it, it makes sense. Anything that is dedicated to one thing 24-hours a day and seven days a week is bound to suck at some point.

Anything done too much is bound to be more bad than good. 

The problem when it comes to news channels is that Americans trust these sources that in the end care less about giving you good news and more that you are watching them all day, every day.

Therefore, they put people on air equivalent to the crazy nutcase that screams out stupid stuff at town hall meetings and gives them a show.

So, to all my readers out there, don’t torture yourself like me.

Diversify your news sources and don’t believe everything you see on TV. In the words of Congressman Joe Wilson, I say to 24-hour news stations: “You lie!”