Television News

As most of you know, Grim's Hall has been without television since 2006 -- originally as a cost-saving measure, and later because we found we didn't miss it. I didn't have a lot of time for television before that, and one reason it made so little impact on us was that we were always too busy to watch it anyway. I mostly used it to watch old movies that happened to be on late in the evening as I was winding down for bed, but that can be done more cheaply in many ways. In addition I've often been out of the country, in places where television wasn't necessarily available or in English.

For these reasons I've been largely immune to many of the worst trends afflicting society these last twenty years: reality television, the general decline of standards of obscenity, the general rise of libertine standards on displays of sexuality. But I had thought I was more or less engaged with the news, because I keep up with the news carefully as a citizen ought to do.

These last few days have disabused me of that notion. Visiting a relative in the hospital, I've been exposed to television news as it is now done on both local and cable networks. I am appalled.

We used to watch the news at home when I was a boy, and I remember that it was nearly always bad. But I don't remember the obsessive focus on getting and displaying footage of those whom the overwhelming force of tragedy has momentarily turned to screaming, crying, emotional wrecks. At some point the news has become genuinely wicked, preying on disaster for the pure voyeuristic pleasure of seeing a human being reduced to an animal.

This is horrifying and shameful. I dread to consider what it says about our culture.