So It’s Come To This…

/ Jack Marshall

Today I woke up to a new year and made the mistake of allowing my screen to land on Fox News. The gang was seriously interviewing an astrologer. On a news show. She was enthusing about what a wonderful month January is, because the moon is in all kinds of “houses,” or something.

I refuse to watch the movie “Network” again because I know it would send me to the bridge. So many of the seemingly absurd programs screenwriter Paddy Cheyefsky concocted for his dark 1976 satire about a fictional TV network that abandons all integrity and only aims to entertain and inflame the public have come to pass—reality shows, sick competitions, ranting pundits and worse—that the famous film can no longer be amusing. It’s horrifying that the decline of the medium and its journalism particularly has come to pass when this seemed so impossible 50 years ago.

One of the shows on “Network” featured a mystic who predicted the news. Of course Fox News would go down that metaphorical sewer. A real psychic would have seen it coming…

10 thoughts on “So It’s Come To This…”

  1. Happy New Year! I hope because it’s a “day off” that it was more of a silly fluff piece than true news. It would be unfortunate to begin the new year with the doom and gloom “crisis news” they’re used to spreading around. The public probably doesn’t want to hear it for just one day.

    Reply

  2. True….these kind of “fillers” are prevalent on all “news” shows from Christmas Eve through New Year’s Day. Best course is to keep it all turned off until Jan 2nd, when reality can bop each of us over the head again. Today is a great day for catching up on meaningful connections or a good book. Put complaints, angst, and other such anxiety producing things on a temporary hold.

    Did you know that Mt. Olive, NC, the pickle capital of the US, has a New Year’s Eve Pickle Drop each year? Imagine heading into the new year without not knowing that!!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APpQQ3F4j_Y

    Reply

    • “Did you know that Mt. Olive, NC, the pickle capital of the US, has a New Year’s Eve Pickle Drop each year? Imagine heading into the new year without not knowing that!!”

      Howse about WESconsin’s Monroe Limburger Cheese Drop or Prairie Du Chien’s Carp Drop…

      PWS

      Reply

  3. Veel heil en zegen in het nieuwe jaar!

    I am quite curious to see this interview, and hope that Fox hasit up on YouTube. Astrologers are part of weird America, the America of traveling carnivals, circuses, country fairs; one of the traditions that inspire a sense of wonder and curiosity in people, especially the young. Santa Claus traditions during Christmas season do a same thing, they invoke a sense of magic and makes us long back to our childhood. So does Halloween. We should be careful to preserve these traditions, and not out of a misplaced sense of rationality become like the mother in Miracle at 34th Street.

    Reply

    • News is not supposed to make people dumber. By featuring an astrology as if astrology was anything buy ancient superstitious carp, Fox helps the con artists who scam gullible Americans every day.Featuring a geek is one thing…featuring a liar as if she is legitimate is something else.

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      • And yet… I still can’t be upset. Curiousity has been culled and if nonsense and superstition on a news channel fluff piece makes them curious I’m all for it. Don’t be discouraged most people aren’t quite so stupid as to believe horoscopes, even if planting by the moon is still followed by many in the farmers almanac. Who knows, we don’t know what we don’t know. I would like to pretend that the fault is in the stars instead of pure stupidity on our part. Just for today…. (A completely arbitrary day that is made relevant because we. say. so. )

        Reply

      • “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”

        Is astrology unethical? Is it unethical for a newspaper, or any other publication, to publish a horoscope? Is it unethical for parents to tell children that Santa Claus exists?

        I do not believe in astrology. Is any belief that cannot be proven with the scientific method using reason and fact thereby unethical? What about religions?

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  4. Hmm, well it appears that one of the roles of Fox News in our society is to generate outrage among the dwindling number of people who watch it so…. mission accomplished, I guess?

    Re those dwindling numbers, Fox News had an average of 3.28M viewers in prime time in 2025. Better than the other legacy media news, but following the same downward trend.

    By comparison Joe Rogan has over 200 million subscribers, and he is a single host who talks to people (typically for over an hour), as opposed to a whole media operation song and dance.

    I think the future is clear…

    Reply

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