Breaking up is hard to do

But, I did it!

That's it. It’s official. Just like that, it's finally over! My long tumultuous relationship with MSNBC has come to an abrupt end. It's like a band aid covering a sore. It's better to just rip it off and get it over with.

I have never been very fond of the 5 minute local new broadcasts on FOX, ABC, NBC and CBS so it was not a difficult decision to eliminate them all together many years ago.

I began watching CNN back in the early 80's when I was pregnant with my daughter and I was too uncomfortable to sleep. I would waddle into the living room late at night, sit in my bentwood rocker and watch CNN. It was almost the only show on TV that I could get at any hour. We became close friends. 

Around the time of the 2008 elections, CNN seemed to be drifting more and more away from any semblance of fair and balanced reporting and moving towards talking heads who really weren't reporting relevant news. Their views seemed to blow in the wind, sort of willy nilly. When I grew increasing annoyed with watching Wolf Blitzer, (who IMO did a less than stellar job covering the election) I ended our relationship in favor of what I thought was the more "progressive" line-up over on MSNBC. (If you want your intelligence insulted, watch Wolf Blitzer on CNN -- he is the standard-bearer of what passes for "news" nowadays)

For a while MSNBC seemed to serve me well. In the beginning it felt like I had found a station with views similar to mine. But soon I grew tired of the same old thing.

I began to wonder, why is it that so many important events go un mentioned? There is a HUGE protest going on in Canada of which I have never seen any coverage or even heard any mention of. There was also a protest recently in Japan where nearly 40,000 people gathered in front of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's residence in Tokyo to protest his decision to restart two nuclear reactors. 


Where was the media news coverage? And what about the failures of President Obama? No discussion of the closing of Guantanamo, a war still raging, not one person prosecuted for the financial economic meltdown. Big oil, big agribusiness, big insurance, and big pharma all continue to get whatever they ask for.  Medical costs are still factors in a majority of personal bankruptcies, and the FCC has essentially abandoned any pretense of regulating the cable and broadcast industries not to mention millionaires and billionaires buying our elections. 

Photo Source 
Canadian protest

Channels like Fox, CNN and MSNBC need political conflict to remain viable so don't bother criticizing them. They are not in the business of educating the public. They are in the business of making money for the 6 multinational corporations who own them. Each station's agenda is to rant against the other party, pitting neighbor against neighbor and distracting us from the reality of what is really going on in our country and in our world.

Nuclear protest in Japan

"Those who have the largest megaphones in our corporate state serve the very systems of power we are seeking to topple. They encourage us, whether on Fox or MSNBC, to debate inanities, trivia, gossip or the personal narratives of candidates. They seek to channel legitimate outrage and direct it into the black hole of corporate politics. They spin these silly, useless stories from the “left” or the “right” while ignoring the egregious assault by corporate power on the citizenry, an assault enabled by the Democrats and the Republicans. Don’t waste time watching or listening. They exist to confuse and demoralize you." OWS June 2012