No More Nightly News for Me -

Nightly News

I majored in history and I believe it’s important for our children and grandchildren to know about their country, their state and their communities. But….the last six months or so I haven’t been able to make myself watch the news. Children being killed or molested. Manhunts in Savannah, Chicago, Austin after weekend shooting rampages. It’s just too much.

When I was teaching American History I talked about every war from the Civil War up to present day. It was gruesome, gory and unpleasant to think about but in most cases we knew who we were fighting and why. Today the news is filled of things Americans do to each other. It boggles my mind.

I can’t imagine what my great-grandchildren’s history books will be like. There probably won’t even be books. I imagine they will do everything online. I remember once when I was teaching we had a guest speaker (I can’t remember who it was but he had something to do with media) and he told my students that one day there wouldn’t be a need for newspapers. I about fell over!

We had a newspaper on our kitchen table as long as far back as I could remember. When we went on vacations dad sometimes bought two or three different papers to read. No newspaper? That could never happen…but it did happen to many papers. Here’s a list of papers who were either shut down or merged.

And then there is the issue of trust. I trusted Walter Cronkite. I believed every word he said was the truth and nothing but the truth. I don’t feel that way about any nightly news anchor today.

Some smart person said don’t bring up problems unless you can offer a solution. I’m sorry smart person, whoever you are, the only solution I can come up with is the chorus to a James Taylor song.