Initiating Plan B

It's 3:34 am saturday morning. At least where I am in the world right now. I add this last piece of relatively insignificant information because every time I spend extended periods of time on the west coast (of the United States) I just cannot fathom how people manage living here in regards to being three hours behind everything. I still cannot shake the feeling of being caught in a time warp. I've still not fallen asleep after an hour or so of laying here in between worlds and so decided to pick up the phone to do some writing. Went on FB for a minute to post a question -- Facebook is an amazing resource when you need a quick answer to almost anything -- and most of the status updates I saw are people who are a starting to wake up. To them it's Saturday. To me it's Friday night and I haven't even gone to sleep yet, let alone woken up inside of Saturday morning.

I don't think my mind or body will ever get used to the west coast time zone. I just don't feel comfortable in my skin here, being so far behind everyone and everything going on. If you want to watch the evening news on the west coast I've learned, say something like the McNeil Lehrer Report or Situation Room (I know, why bother with anything CNN at this point -- see an upcoming entry regarding the decline and fall of CNN in the near future) you have to stop what you're doing smack dab in the middle of the day and watch it at 3pm in the afternoon. Seriously. Right in the middle of your work day. It's so frustratingly off putting. If by chance you're working, and why wouldn't you be, and you must wait till the more traditional post work 6 or 7 pm end of day timeframe to watch the news, you're going to end up in the world of cable news gossip shows -- things like Anderson Pooper or Piers "I have no business being on a news network" Morgan. Because the networks are running live. Which I will readily admit is probably a good thing. They can't after all delay the news for west coasters. But certainly something could be done to accommodate the other half of the country... Like run the NEWS at night too; instead of these crap personality talk shows.

What the hell has happened to just good old fashioned traditional news reporting in this country? Why the fuck is it so hard to get some? Even if you are lucky enough to catch a more traditional or standard news show like the aforementioned Situation Room or OutFront or Shepard Smith et al., what you end up with is hearing about approximately three to five stories tops each accompanied by a cadre of so called panelists and non-experts, talking heads who spew opinion about other taking head's opinions. It's a televised gossip column is what it is; using news topics (occasionally important or worthy) as celebrity. And when one show is over the following show begins, albeit with another dolled up host (not anchor) who then proceeds to repeat the exact same three to five news items the show before it spent an hour reporting on. The actual news, the thousands and thousands of interesting and important news events that transpired all over the world that day go unreported. And with a station like CNN, which a decade ago used to be a real news network, or Headline news -- which used to be an even better more traditional news network, this mind numbing process repeats over and over again all day and night with only the talking head behind the desk changing. The news items don't. The same damn three to five pieces just get cycled and recycled over and over again until you think you've either lost your mind or are thoroughly convinced everyone else except you has.

I think the question that millions of people are asking right now, at least those who haven't allowed their brain or intelligence to fall into a deep hypnotic hibernation or permanent hypothermia, is what the hell happened to good old fashioned news reporting and journalism, i.e. a news anchor man (or woman) sitting behind a desk reporting the most important and or interesting global news events of the day, one after the other, without opinion or commentary or panelists or round tables or guest celebrity experts? As in one hour of watching the news would catch you up on at least fifteen to twenty different news worthy events of the day. At least.

Instead we are bombarded ad nauseum by overly dramatized and hyped up shock-talk radio like commentary and gossip on a handful of worn out stories that border on the inane and remind one more of a primetime sitcom about a bunch of uninformed high school kids who don't have anything better to do nor know any better than to ramble on for hours with their opinion about what they believe to be hot and trendy; as if switching to a different subject could mean the death of their reputation as one of the cool kids.

Ted Turner we all know you've drank more than your fair share of the sauce in your time and you've got the crazy eyes and complete disregard for propriety to show for it, but for the sake of all that is holy in the world of news journalism and arming an informed populace with the data they need to stay informed and actively engaged with the world they live in -- we need you to take back control of your brilliant little pet project that once served our needs so well in days gone by. My guess is that Ted can't watch more than three minutes of CNN now without throwing a shoe at the TV in between retching and cursing the day he sold out to Time Warner.

This post was supposed to be about implementing Plan B. but as we can all see I've instead gone ahead and written the piece about the myopic idiocy that is now called reporting the news. That's not a bad thing. I've already begun to implement plan B. I promise to return soon and fill you in on it. It's now past 5 am here on the west coast and I need to get some sleep.