Turn on your television. If you flip to a news channel, you'll probably see Bill O'Reilly or Bill Maher complaining about something.
If you're hardy enough to make it to the 7 o'clock news, you're likely to see stories about household items that could be deadly, a murder or two and perhaps a drug bust.
Who cares if there's a bill passed to cut funding to welfare? Apparently no one, since seeing a real news story is about as likely as Bush admitting he was wrong about, well, anything.
The news today just isn't cutting it. What used to be a an industry of hard-hitting reporters can now be considered little more than infotainment.
In fact, one can arguably garner more valuable information from "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" than from "CBS News."
Why exactly has this happened?
In his recent book, "Bad News," Tom Fenton criticizes the news media for going soft. He explains that because television news is supported by ratings (and therefore, the commercial space) reporters aren't covering real news.
The media today, he argues, is all about the bottom line -- everything is driven by finances.
The news presents what people want to hear.
The truth is, they want nicely packaged, easily understood and -- most importantly -- short news stories.
They want bite-sized chunks that can be viewed during commercial breaks in "Desperate Housewives."
Unfortunately, when sensational reporting is the norm, everything else -- including important and relevant stories -- is thrown by the wayside.
Take, for example, the Terri Schiavo debacle.
No matter which side of the debate on which people fell, most could agree that the decision should have been a private one (According to public opinion polls, approximately 80 percent of the public believed that Congress should not have gotten involved.).
Yet while we were all glued to our televisions, watching our old friend Terri, the world didn't stop revolving.
In case you were wondering, while poor Terri was fighting the good fight, a nine-year-old was abducted and murdered, and thanks to The Miami Herald -- who pays attention to them anyway? -- we now know that about 1,800 sex offenders are nowhere to be found.
The mayor of Orlando was indicted for voting-related fraud, and of course, who could forget the debate over whether or not people should be able to publicly use "deadly force" against an attacker?
Thank goodness The New York Times took a few minutes to print a paragraph informing us of all this.
You'd know all that, of course, if you flipped past the front page and happened to read three quarters of the way through the article.
But really now, who would ever do that? Besides, the print is much too small, and there's a severe lack of colorful pictures.
The point is that not all the blame can be placed on the news media itself. Half the blame lies with the public.
The American people have been dumbed down to the point where they no longer have the capacity to demand better quality news.
They don't care much for valuable news.
People want explosions. They want prostitution busts. They want shiny things.
Garbage in, garbage out, as my fifth grade teacher used to say.
The American people need to wake up and tear their eyes away from the television long enough to realize they're being manipulated.
Then again, why do that when you could have all your thinking done for you?
