By Elliott Brack
Editor and publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 17, 2018 | Do you still watch the 11 o’clock so-called local news? Pity. It’s not vital to us any more, and not part of our lives, except for the rare occasion when severe weather is approaching.
We stopped watching the so-called “late news” 10-15 years ago. We just got tired of all the “cheap news,” that is, the blood-and-guts of the most recent shooting, or car accident, or robbery. Seldom do we see solid major news stories on television. Anyway if the 11 p.m. report has a significant story, it most likely will appear in the next morning’s newspaper. We don’t necessarily need it the night before.
We’re more likely to watch local television at 6 p.m. if bad weather is approaching. We marvel at the way most of the local channels, especially WSB-TV, can, through modern meteorological devices, pinpoint when the rain or the lightening, etc. is predicted at a given area.
And we got tired of that worn-out local television phenomenon of a reporter pointing to a spot and telling us (get ready for this journalistic scoop)……“That’s where the event (whatever it was) happened,” as if that was important to anyone. Seldom does this pointing to the location add to the story, which could have happened 24 hours ago.
These days we’re benefitting (and enjoying) the streaming of entertainment through the Internet, through a Wi-Fi connection and our television set. We bought one of those Roku devices (one time cost $35), and simply plugged it into our TV set. It’s so easy, and I can say that, since I did the connection myself.
Now we subscribe to three services to get streaming through the Roku: Netflix (for about 5-6 years now), Prime Video through Amazon, and Acorn TV. We pay $10.99 for Netflix, and have all kind of movies, TV shows, documentaries, etc. available to us. We seldom go to the movies, but enjoy through streaming many current movies…a little later than people who attend first run movies.
We pay $119 a year for Amazon Prime, and with that we get free shipping when we buy one or two times a month some product from Amazon. We figure this shipping nets out, so that the entertainment part of Amazon Prime comes out entirely free. As for Acorn TV ($5.99 a month) , we enjoy that area for its line-up of British television episodes, some of which we have seen on PBS, but many more series which are shown in Britain, are available seldom in America. (We’ve just watched some Doc Martin shows not shown here previously).
So yes, our world has changed through our more selective watching of television. We’re more inclined these days to think and choose what to watch, rather than automatically taking in shows we once enjoyed on network television, like Andy Griffith, or All in the Family or MASH*. Luckily, we can sometimes catch them on re-runs. They’re still often fun.
On another note, we also suspect that many of you no longer anticipate or subscribe to the daily newspaper. While we lament their once-dominant importance, sadly, many newspapers are a ghost of what they once were. Many of you now get your news through social media, though these media can’t do what a great investigative newspaper story can. We hope newspapers find a route to become more vital in our lives.
Ways to get our news has changed, not necessarily for the better. Today I’d rather be to sleep earlier in bed than to stay up later for….not much.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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