The "News" and TV in general.........

So Glad · 12-06-2007 09:03AM #1

A few months ago I decided to stop watching television, due to the fact that it is separating people more and more from reality. Programs like Desperate Housewives, America's Next Top Model, Big Brother, Fox News, Sky News, MTV are continuously portraying a false reality and people are believing it. So I stopped that, I only watch DVDs every now and then, maybe a bit of comedy. But I have friends and family members who watch these programs with full concentration and I think it's absolute madness. Can they actually see themselves and what they are watching? Have they been softened to watch just about anything? It's madness.

Anyways, was on Sky News' webpage to glance at the headline for the first time in months, and behold.....all the headlines are absolutely irrelevant to anything and are desparate attempts to build pointless and unnessesary stories up, then scroll down to the small text near the bottom "Boy's Body Found Floating In Channel", "Police Shoot Dead Person In Kent" whilst headlines are the 2012 Olympic logo, Paris Hilton, Coke Cans and long gone over-blown Maddie? Remember the Iraq war?

Please tell me I'm not the only one! :mad:

DaBreno · 12-06-2007 09:13AM

Youre not the only one. The state of TV these days is rather muck. I have the Sky satellite in and one could flick through the hundreds of chanells on offer and still find themselves looking at the same crap. I blame Channell 4 and Big Brother. They heralded in a dark age of appalling TV that is best described as "Bored people watching other people being Bored".

Knock Sky News on the head however, tis pure tabloid news. Who wants to hear about missile systems in Bulgaria when we have Paris Hilton?

c - 13 · 12-06-2007 09:14AM

I dont think i've watched television in about a year now. Any news I am interested in can be found on the internet.

I've taken to buying DVD's and if there is any show that interests me I will buy it on DVD instead of watching it on TV. Even if this means waiting longer to get it.

As you said yourself with the deluge of crap programming and so called "reality" TV shows, I am beginning to wonder if the general viewing audience is actually getting dumber to allow themselves to be spoon fed this muck.

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to completely remove yourself from all the "News" and celebrity crap, its everywhere, radio, newspapers (even a fair few of the broadsheets are including it now), internet and general people gossiping.

So Glad · 12-06-2007 09:18AM

Big Brother was bad enough though, but these new genre of programs are turning people into vain, egotistical idiots. The girls I know who watch America's Next Top Model think and act like those idiots because they honestly think that's success or something.

This type of journalism in the media is also dangerous. If we keep overlooking things and reporting bull**** it's gonna nip us in the but real hard.....9/11 anyone?

So Glad · 12-06-2007 09:20AM

c - 13 wrote:

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to completely remove yourself from all the "News" and celebrity crap, its everywhere, radio, newspapers (even a fair few of the broadsheets are including it now), internet and general people gossiping.

Yes, I find the internet a safe haven. But it's under threat. I'm sure you've seen the adverts that seem to have permission to fill your screen with bull****, and pre-video stream ads and most recently, pre-flash game ads that are highly irritating.

Fortunately, some well placed Firefox add-ons work wonders for that crap.

Tar.Aldarion · 12-06-2007 09:22AM

I do not watch tv, and also have opinions, some coincide with yours!

ClarenceOveur · 12-06-2007 09:27AM

Yeah, I stopped watching telly about 1/2 months ago and its grand. DVD's are keeping me going so far. Missing the matches is a bit annoying, but it's not worth getting all the other crap to watch them. A mates house/the pub is fine by me.

Thankfully I haven't seen *any* Big Brother this time around and I had taken to shouting at Sky News

Duggy747 · 12-06-2007 09:48AM

Back home I stopped watching Sky digital roughly about 4 years ago, sheer muck!! I only watch UK GOLD now just to catch Top Gear which leads me to a funny lil' story. My older sister comes in and sees me watching Top Gear:

Sister: "What are you doing watching that!?! It glorifies boy racing and dangerous driving!"

Didn't know what to say back really to that, well, stupid comment so I watched the last 2 mins of it and hand the remote over to my sis...........to which she turns over to Big Brother and proceeds to watch for the next few hours.

ME: "What are you doing watching that!?! It glorifies stupidity......bah!!"

As for the news thing, yeah, the whole priorities are a "little" bolloxed up. I read the papers all the time and last weekend I read more about fùckin Paris Hilton than any other matter! :mad:

AlmightyCushion · 12-06-2007 10:02AM

Yeah I don't watch tv much nowadays. Too much sh!te on for my liking.

So Glad · 12-06-2007 10:03AM

Jesus H. Christ.

I'm now looking at "world news" and I am just.....astonished.....I never knew it was this bad.

"World News".

Right....some Coke produce made with unpaid labor in China prisons.....oh, as apposed to 5 cent a hour?! Outrage, outrage! :rolleyes: People are made make licence plates in American prisons without pay, is this a travesty? A story about a sniffer dog.....F1......man dressed in Crocodile costume.....Cameron Diaz posing with a child.....bus crashes into building, nobody hurt, few bricks about the place.......Paris Hilton, Paris Hilton..............This is world news? My, my, my....

Steve_o · 12-06-2007 10:28AM

Who cares about anything in the world, George Michael is eyeing up a diamond skull....now thats news!!!!:rolleyes:

AlmightyCushion · 12-06-2007 10:34AM

Steve_o wrote:

Who cares about anything in the world, George Michael is eyeing up a diamond skull....now thats news!!!!:rolleyes:

Yeah I read that today. WTF? €75m it's costing him as well.

Tusky · 12-06-2007 10:39AM

I stopped watching tv about two years ago. I would say I watch something on tv maybe once every month or two. I download any of the programs I want and buy dvds.

smashey · 12-06-2007 10:42AM

boards.tv.

Sign up and let rip.

r3nu4l · 12-06-2007 10:43AM

While Big Brother is trash TV at it's best/worst Channel 4 have done some amazing documentaries and Channel 4 news is very good and filled with mostly serious content. C4 News were not afraid to grill C4 bosses over the recent Big Brother (and Celeb BB) racism events. C4 news (produced by ITN) retain a lot of independence form the channel itself which is great.

Sky News has always been terrible imo. It is purely agenda ridden muck and it really does pander for the most part to the lowest common denominator. I agree that a huge amount of television is poor but there are some good shows.

I regret that Channel 4 has gone steadily downhill over the years with "How Clean is your house", "Big Brother" and "You are What you eat" but on the other hand you do have "Embarrassing illnesses" which is an excellent educational program that really does have merit. IMO, that should be shown in every school in the UK and Ireland.

TV can be real muck but there are individual programs out there that are worth watching. You just have to discipline yourself and train yourself not to get sucked into watching all the crap! <-- he says after watching Big Brother for the last two weeks or so

Slow Motion · 12-06-2007 10:47AM

I am proud to say I have never watched an episode of BB, I have four channels and watch the news, Q & A and the odd Prime time ! I do however have a rather impressive collection of DVDs, books and P.C. games

....and friends, honest !

c - 13 · 12-06-2007 10:50AM

r3nu4l wrote:

... C4 News were not afraid to grill C4 bosses over the recent Big Brother (and Celeb BB) racism events. C4 news (produced by ITN) retain a lot of independence form the channel itself which is great...

OK, now I have not seen the footage of these comments made and dont watch TV to see the news but my first though on reading about it in the headlines were C4 thought, "Racism last year = Ratings ++; Racism this Year = Ratings ++++; lets get someone to go in and use the N-Word". Sensationalism = Ratings, C4 news is obviously going to give air time ot an incident that happened on their own channels even if only to publicise to draw more viewers. I mean thats not news as far as i'm concerned ...

(if that makes sense)

Steve_o · 12-06-2007 10:58AM

AlmightyCushion wrote:

Yeah I read that today. WTF? €75m it's costing him as well.

It just goes to show that apparently a singer spending €75mil on a diamond skull is far more important than the several wars going on at the moment...god knows what'll be next!

Duggy747 · 12-06-2007 11:01AM

Since moving to take on work experience I only have the 4 Oìrish channels, but I don't watch too much stuff on it, cept the occasional Hands or WildTwo and of course Home & Away (The smoking weed story has me currently gripped

) I made sure I bought an external Hard Drive before I finished college and filled the bastard up with a ridiculous amount of movies, games, and tv shows collected over the past 2 years.......though now I've pretty much run out of things to do, and just as I was getting hooked on Heroes I run out by the 18th episode, bah!! And I owe AlmightyCushion €200 for letting me use his credit card to buy the thing

AlmightyCushion · 12-06-2007 11:03AM

Steve_o wrote:

It just goes to show that apparently a singer spending €75mil on a diamond skull is far more important than the several wars going on at the moment...god knows what'll be next!

Yeah real news just seems to take a backseat to things like this.

Tar.Aldarion · 12-06-2007 11:03AM

75mil? It was priced at 15 which would make them a nice profit. I guess it shows to go how much people will pay for crap.

Mahatma coat · 12-06-2007 11:11AM

concur with the OP here

Just thinkin about this today, I think We're the last Generation born without Saturation media.

I'm countin anyone born bfore 1980 here, I can remember when Thelma Mansfield was the continuity announcer for RTEcartoons and it started with Bosco at 3pm

A really good movie on this topic would be Idiocracy (actualy the movie touches on ****loads bout modern society)

tho I do watch some telly, couple of shows a week that I cant get online, yho I prefer to watch TV series on the web in batches of programs

Mahatma coat · 12-06-2007 11:15AM

eh Duggy PM me your email and I'll send you a few links where you can Stream the rest of heroes and other shows

Maximilian · 12-06-2007 11:21AM

So Glad wrote:

"Police Shoot Dead Person In Kent"

Why? Did the body body twitch in a threatening manner?

Ger the man · 12-06-2007 11:26AM

I think Ireland in general has a huge tv culture and we will watch any crap that is on. I dont watch tv since getting back into guitar playing, I think watching tv is a wate of time tbh. We actually went without a set for a few months in our house and despite the usual moaning from the kids they got used to being without it very quickly, the license inspector called and didnt believe we didnt have a set, my reply was 'I have a life'. We got a lend of a tv as a test and the kids showed no interest in it, they prefer their hobbies instead! (karate,cooking and music). The neighbours are trying the same thing and are amazed at the results. I cancelled my ntl subscription and the neighbours did the same. I have no time for celebrity (BB, P Hilton etc) rubbish either. Im not saying that tv should be banned, I just think that we waste too much time in front of it, there is simply more to life.

AlmightyCushion · 12-06-2007 11:30AM

Duggy747 wrote:

Since moving to take on work experience I only have the 4 Oìrish channels, but I don't watch too much stuff on it, cept the occasional Hands or WildTwo and of course Home & Away (The smoking weed story has me currently gripped ) I made sure I bought an external Hard Drive before I finished college and filled the bastard up with a ridiculous amount of movies, games, and tv shows collected over the past 2 years.......though now I've pretty much run out of things to do, and just as I was getting hooked on Heroes I run out by the 18th episode, bah!! And I owe AlmightyCushion €200 for letting me use his credit card to buy the thing

I'm the same as yourself with only the four channels. Only watch the odd thing every now and then on the tv. Yes that home and away bit is class

P.S Where's mah money b!tch :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

kevmy · 12-06-2007 11:33AM

I wouldn't go to drastic step of not watching television but I would not watch any of the crap. The idea of TV imo is to entertain, inform and educate in that order.
Some people find different things entertaining. Personally I watch mainly dramas and some comedies on TV eg. Prison Break, Lost, Sopranos, Simpsons etc. The good stuff essentially. IMO some of these programs are better than some of the best films every made. The Godfather trilogy is a bout 9/10 hours but the Sopranos is prob 100 hours of the same quality.
However I do believe that News and most programming have been dumbed down. Reality shows, any 24 news station etc. However there are still a lot of excellent documentaries and current affairs shows around. C4 news (as mentioned before is v. good), some Prime Times, Attenboroughs stuff.

So it's not that TV is not worth looking at it's just that you have to look at stuf which interests you and is worthwhile. Filter out the crap (of which there is undoubtedly more of these days) and just watch the interesting stuff. If enough people do that they might take the crap stuff off the air due to bad ratings.

Maximilian wrote:

Why? Did the body body twitch in a threatening manner?

LOL

Ger the man · 12-06-2007 11:43AM

I didnt find it drastic at all? I simply had enough of the crap that was on tv and spoke to my kids about watching it. They eventually agreed to no tv for a while and pursued other interests, I recently asked them if they wanted a tv in their bedrooms and they replied 'no way'. Yes there is some good stuff but simply not enough to warrant the cost of a license imo.

Marksie · 12-06-2007 11:43AM

I only get rte, so effecively dont have television at all (in fact i removed the ariel). Still have to pay the lsicence fee though :mad:

The reality TV is utter rubbish and i really dont miss TV at all.

I will go through the internet for the news and have a dvd collection.

Tar.Aldarion · 12-06-2007 11:45AM

Get rid of your tv?

Mahatma coat · 12-06-2007 11:47AM

BirdBath has a topical if rambling article on the subject here

http://www.blather.net/****egeist/2007/05/its_all_gone_grant_morrison_or_how_heroe.htm

The "News" and TV in general.........

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