This past couple of weeks I have been staying with my in-laws. My in-laws and I agree, for the most part, on politics and things of that nature. But my mother in-law loves to watch CNN in the morning. For the first couple of days I was at there home I would only watch CNN because I couldn’t figure out how to turn off their TV/change the channel. My in-laws have all the different tv watching devices and boxes and I did not want to mess up their configuration, and my husband’s grandfather was sitting on the one remote I needed, but didn’t realize it.
Watching CNN for eight hours a day while taking care of a baby made me realize a few things. The biggest being that television news, especially on a 24 hour news network is repetitive. I understand why it needs to be that way, depending on when someone starts watching during the day that person should be able to find out the news. But for those who are watching the channel for a long stretch of time it feels as though you are being indoctrinated into some sort of cult that tells you how horrible anyone against the Muller investigation is.
Maybe because television is such a passive medium it feels dangerous to me. It feels dangerous that any 24 hour news network has the power to just drill their ideas into someone’s head without a break, or without a chance to hear other opinions. I truly see how people can be turned off by these sorts of channels and yet, not be able to turn them off.
Reading my news, for me, allows me to engage and think about what is going on, and also to check facts and sources. I guess, to be fair, a person could be just as passive when looking at news on the internet. By only reading the headlines one can miss the point, or be completely misled. But also one has the entire internet to check sources. In this day in age, none of us can truly afford to be passive when consuming their news, or too afraid to ask their in-laws how to work their telivision.
