Catching the News

Folks, I have a distinct problem getting my news.  I've tried them all.  Fox News Network just does not meet my needs.  As a friend of mine described them, they act too smug, and besides that, they are way too obvious in taking sides.  My news network of choice has been NBC for several years, but Brian Williams’ strong affection for the Obama regime irritates the daylights out of me.  ABC and CBS (when Walter Cronkite stopped reporting and started sermonizing, I switched networks) are even worse, so I usually watch our local ABC affiliate for early morning local news, FNN during the day for updates, an occasional peek at Wolf Blitzer on CNN later in the afternoon, and our local NBC affiliate and the NBC evening news   I guess I should give PBS News an opportunity, but the few times I’ve switched to them have seemed to come during their irritating requests for public support.  I read several on-line news blogs, but I must approach them with a larger grain of salt than I use for telecast news.  No single news blog that I’ve found to date can report without commenting.

If anyone has some ideas, I’m willing to listen, but please don’t suggest any talking head who spouts his or her own thoughts as gospel.  I want to know when our President does something, bad or good, and I want to know the same about our Congress.  Yes, I want to know there's been another murder, but I really don't need to see a reporter standing alone in front of a police tape describing in detail that police spokespersons haven't said anything yet.  I want all the stories, not just the glamorous or fantastic ones. The only thing that took the news folks TV cameras off the problems after the earthquake in Haiti, was an earthquake in Chile, then a volcano in Iceland, and, most recently, an oil well explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.  I really don't expect the newscaster to don his Dan Rather bush jacket and hie off to every catastrophe in the world as if to prove to me that he or she is really a reporter.  I don't want cutesy like CBS seems stuck on, and I for damn sure don't want to be talked down to, ala Glenn Beck. I guess I just want to have a real reporter sit behind a desk with a microphone and describe the day's happenings. Perhaps we should urge Edward R. Murrow to return to the evening news.