At 8:30 am EST I was up this morning. Spuds was snoring away on my bed, it was gray outside in Alexandria, and I began my morning routine of a light breakfast and a strong cup of coffee. By 8:45 I was sitting on my sofa (Boy, do I ever need to replace that!) and leaving the DirecTV “News Mix” on as background noise as I checked the EA comments (not much yet), looked over multiple news aggregator headlines, and periodically switched channels among CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.
CNN began a “report” ( a hit job, in fact) on “the rise of Christian nationalism,” interviewing some cherry-picked fanatic Christian families (one with nine kids) and focusing on a school that makes students pledge allegiance to a Christian flag “and indoctrinates students in the false belief that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.” CNN’s spin was that this is a scary cult “beginning to infiltrate all parts of American society and culture.”
It would have been nice if some objective historian had interjected that the 13 original colonies were indeed founded by Christians, but that the founding documents of the U.S. went to some lengths to avoid locking the U.S. into any religious faith. It was founded as a secular nation by a group of wise Christians who had learned that governments should keep their metaphorical noses out of religious beliefs and that organized religion should stay out of government.
CNN’s “report” was thinly veiled “conservatives are dangerous” propaganda. But this is CNN…
Ethics Alarms 
“CNN’s spin was that this is a scary cult.”
And CNN could not possibly have timed this report to combat the public’s increasing realization that influential Muslims who’ve benefited from our unique system of government are using their platforms to promote their own brand of theocracy. But, no, no…it’s the Christians who are wrong.
Jack,
I am somewhat envious of being able to glean information from the news while attending to other business. If I have something on as background noise, I usually either tune out the background noise while working, or neglect my work while listening to the “background” noise. The only exception is if the task I’m addressing is pretty thoughtless (peeling potatoes, washing dishes, running a few miles). I think my wife is pretty good at handling both a task and background noise together, but then, she says the research says women are generally better than men at multitasking.
In general, I can no longer stand to listen to news. The talking heads are so tedious, not to mention mendacious (as noted in the post), that I feel I’m wasting my time. Reading the chyron is about as much as I can handle. But even written news is getting tedious. I now take any article whose title is a question as fluff demagoguery, as well as any article that begins with “You’ll never guess who…” or contains a reference to a Republican “destroying” a Democrat’s arguments. Sadly, that excludes about a third of Instapundit’s entries…
I guess the question is, if you can’t report the news if you’re not in business, and you can’t be in business without those attention-grabbing (false advertising) headlines, are the only ethical options to close up shop or plunge into the attention-grabbing fluff? Is the option of just providing outstanding news coverage really that unprofitable?
“I now take any article whose title is a question as fluff demagoguery, as well as any article that begins with “You’ll never guess who…” or contains a reference to a Republican “destroying” a Democrat’s arguments. Sadly, that excludes about a third of Instapundit’s entries…”
Ditto. But they’re just copying the left-leaning headlines that babbled about how some Left-Wing talking head or pol “expertly” or “perfectly” handled/answered/schooled/ bashed Trump or another conservative.
Sayeth Joe: “There are two justice systems, one for Republicans and one for Democrats.”
Well, that has been true — Republicans are prosecuted and Democrats are not. I’m sure that’s what Joe meant.
Laws are for little people and Republicans?