The 10 Skydivers and "News" in general
 

Who else here pointedly refuses to read/watch/listen to the news anymore?
The story of the 10 skydivers from washington who died during their trip is one of the few articles I've heard of that is actually an ACCIDENT. And while this is horrible this is much better than the countless, COUNTLESS stories of people being murdered, raped, tortured, kids being beaten, school shooting, etc...

Does anyone ELSE think there's no good news on TV anymore, and not worth paying attention to?

I stopped watching television when it said "Another soldier was killed in Iraq" 10 days in a row. Then after that, when I tried watching television again, it said "America is charging its soldiers with murder and shooting of innocents and unarmed hostiles."
[To me, WHAT THE FUCK?! THEY ARE SOLDIERS, they are gonna die, and they were trained to kill people. American media is just stupid because its so biased and just makes America into the MOB that it is].

Basically all TV news is local stories of lurid quality elevated to the national level because reporting actual national news would be hard work that costs money and would only upset the interests of the networks' well-heeled corporate parents and ad-time purchasers. Really even at its best TV is a subpar medium for conveying any kind of meaningful information. So yes as TV news in particular is concerned I have no truck with it.

That said as to the general criticism about the lack of "good" news I would hardly call that reason to not pay attention. News shouldn't be judged whether or not it's painted in sufficient shades of sunshine and rainbows, but the degree to which it meaningfully impacts you and the world around you. Which is why I do tend to pay attention to stories about, e.g., the federal government torturing people and conducting unprovoked wars of colonial aggression, or our courts giving school administrators license to mistreat students, and the like, because these are issues that do ultimately affect me and the people I care about.

Which isn't to say I can't understand the impulse to say oh to hell with it altogether, as it generally tends to be pretty continually depressing and it's not like there's a whole terrible hell of a lot we as individuals can do about any of these kinds of things on a day-to-day basis.

That sig you had a while back was pretty accurate in regards to TV news outlets, Fif; something about how news programs produce a product - their audience, which they then sell to their customers - their advertisers. As a general rule I stay away from broadcast 'news,' but I'll check out some of the more biased places from time to time to read between the lies. How people lie about stuff is just as informative as if they just told the truth in many cases. Take for example that case the Supreme Court just refused to hear about the German torture victim; their flimsy excuse (we can't talk about it because then you'd hear about it) was basically a tacit admission of knowledge that we do in fact torture people.

I just prefer internet news sources because text can't yell at me.

I don't watch TV news or read the paper - generally, it all just depresses me. I look for some political stuff sometimes if I hear something in class that interests me, or every once in a while if I'm just bored and feel like researching stuff, but that's all done over the internet.

I don't even trust televised news. Their top concern isn't getting facts across; it's making profit for their corporation. Most of the stories that they cover are either pointless and done for shock value (Paris Hilton said WHA????) or blatant-fear mongering because they know both will get them viewers, and in turn make more money.

If I want to learn something in the news, I generally look on the internet for it. It's much easier here to be able to find a few stories which conflict with each other and paint a better picture than trying to sort through papers or flip channels looking for dissent.

I don't mean necessarily the politics of TV, and the news.. I mean ALL news.. Radio, TV, the Papers.. Like, there is NOTHING that makes me go "Gee, I am glad to be part of the human race"
I remember our local papers had a "hero of the week" section, where it detailed something someone did to benefit the community.
Things as fantastic as pulling someone out of a fire, to the mundane like taking a cat out of a tree.
Where is all THAT?? I've never considered myself to be overly sensitive to anything, but I find the absolute lack of anything GOOD out there to be draining even for ME.
and THAT is sad.

That's the thing though. Good news doesn't sell like violence and destruction. People will tune in to the bad stuff but the good stuff just makes us go "Meh, whatever. I think Steven Segal is on the other channel." If you want to feel like the human race is something worth being a part of, make your own good news. Make life better for other people.

Oh I try to do my part. I'm not perfect of course, but I like to think I don't make the world a bigger disaster than it sometimes already is.
I'd just like to SEE something else everyone in awhile.
After the Skydiving thing I saw something else on the news about a brand new cop who got killed something like 6 people, then got into a gun battle with OTHER cops on his first day.
Fantastic...

About the skydivers' plane thing. Here is a situation where, for once, everyone on board has a parachute, yet no one survived? No one jumped as the plane hurtled to the ground?

Granted, I couldn't probably think or move rationally in such a situation of UTTER TERROR, but...they had parachutes!



This post is not intended for the Sarcasm or Humor Impaired.

It takes a highly experienced skydiver approximately 10 seconds to get their parachute on.
That's in ideal conditions.
You can't use a parachute INSIDE a plane, and unless the plane was gently floating to the earth instead of crashing with enough force to kill everyone on board I doubt anyone had the opportunity to get out of their seat, don a parachute, get the door open, and make the jump before they passed a safe altitude in which you are even CAPABLE of jumping.
I find your stupid comments offensive, and wholly ignorant.