Very well said, and very true. I have not watched a nightly newscast in approximately eight years. I do not miss it.

I get most of my news now days from Comedy Central, NPR and the BBC. The world is the way it is because most of us refuse to get involved or even vote. We have the power but will not use it.

So very true. I stopped watching the news 15 years ago. It will suck the very life out of you. Besides, watching my raccoons play is infinitely more entertaining! 😊

we rarely switch on the television on to watch news, but i do see the news online on the internet. There is so many bad things that happens all over the world and that bad smothers and hurt when one see it virtually every day when one peek at all the news happening all over the world every day. May Gods goodness prevail though all over the bad that hurts us every day when one read and see it online. Wo9nderful writing Tara. God bless.

I don't watch the telly anymore
great prose

Very thought provoking! I don't think I could do without the BBC

I haven't owned a television since I returned from Prague (though I do watch DVDs on my laptop) but the news...ick...televised cancer! I'd just as soon do without it, since nothing ever reported has anything to do with the people I know: of if it does, it serves only to vilify them in some way. It's funny: without television or the news, I feel more plugged in, because I get the news anyway, from people who are living through lives that are worth talking about...a particular Russian enduring the art world in Moscow (and pollution from China making the Amur river in Khabarovsk rather...um..."ugly", and I get the latest skinny on the goings on in Brno...far more important news that one stranger killing another stranger and the talking-bubble-heads talking it up for ratings, while concidentally feeding the problem for the almighty high ratings! Ah...yeah...news. This is brilliantly stated and it cuts straight to the heart of the matter, and it's funny, when I don't pay attention to what the talking bubble-heads say what's going on, I get a really clear picture of what's going on and it usually center on bloodshed, mayhem,and social-throwback behavior. (And as I've been sending stories out for professional publication, don't even get me started on "kitchen sink realism" which *dominates" contemporary American fiction and works hand-in-hand with the news by showing you just how wonderful it is to be powerless and "insignificant" and...well...plotless...screw plotless, insignificant powerlessness...gimme the kinds of social change that take place every day whenever somebody makes a difference or engages in acts that don't get ratings...oh, and I am somewhat anxious to see the occasional Star Wars: Rogue One update with pretty pictures of upcoming alien puppets.) This is superb work, and quite on-target.

I rarely watch TV at all, and even more rarely, the news. So depressing... I do stop by CNN or MSNBC every now and then, but mostly it's all death and tragedy. Yeah, the news programs don't get ratings with the good, and the stories that give us all a glimmer of hope that we aren't on the eve of destruction (to borrow from a song back in the 60s...)

Putin has given the western news media a good lecture and upbraiding for being slanted, dragging the world towards a new world war due to their politically correct bias which influences leaders and peoples alike. Did the western media listen? Of course not. They even tried to bury the news from Putin! So, WW III, blame it on the news media. How much blood do they have on their hands due to PC crap? Reminds me of the Hearst papers/Yellow Journalism whipping up anti-Spanish sentiments which resulted in the Spanish-American War in 1898. Good job with this, Tara! Keep it up! :-)

I rarely turn the television on.

Hi girl,

as usual, your prose and image shone light on the issue of 'news" overload or maybe better to say the challenges facing us all in this age of instant media coverage skewed through the eyes of both the speaker and the listener. Your poem is both thought provoking and thoughtful. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and seeing the image you paired it with. keep on stimulating and challenging and offering your wise impressions and thoughts. I benefit from them as well as many others, I have no doubt. love, teressa

I have a knack to filter stuff out I don't deem important. BTW, I already voted and I don't watch the mud-slinging!

I don't watch TV!! Bet you are glad I came back eh? LOL!

As always, you write this with easeful mastery; your questions get more urgent towards the end---where you want them to be more urgent---and so they get shorter, more terse, more to the point. You use your usual fine lineation to single out meanings and feelings in single-word lines, or two-word lines. You have those 'breaths', those cadences which give deeper emphasis to what you're saying. And you give strong specifics---such as the person helping someone in line, or the perpetrator who didn't seek our advice. And you help break the hold that media has on the world. Very finely done and written. And I agree with what you write.

I just have to say, for myself, that I don't rely on televised news---which is what this piece seems to address, along with sensationalized and easy-digested news, or internet sensationalism, or radio (which can be the worst of the lot). Part of "news" is what I think to be fine journalism, the deeply researched pieces that truly give us insight about the world. Or journal writers, who are historians and other learned people, who give deep insights into the world, and give us the perspective to know---really important---that this isn't the first time such and such happened, but is rather part of the long human condition. I don't think that's what you're referring to, here---though some of it comes from newspapers---but I just need to do a shout-out for that, because it's an antidote to the rat-a-tat-tat of cable news. And it can give us a great deal.

As for someone helping someone in a line...I guess if we try to do those things, in our own feeble ways, we believe that it's an important moment too. You have no argument from me on that, god knows. If I might paraphrase you, the world---which news claims to have a monopoly on---can exist in a grain of sand; and a mountain can be moved by an act of kindness. That's not stuff that usually shows up on the news.

For all the talk-talk-talk of so much news, when you see a journalist go put themselves on the line, sometimes even their lives, to dig out the first stories (first exposed in the Boston Globe) about priests who've been abusing young children; or reporters risking their jobs and even their lives, exposing terrible things our government just did in secret, that's a form of news I'm grateful for, even if I don't read every story (and yes, they can be repetitious after a while, as in, do we need to know every instance of corruption when we already know there is so much?) But some of those stories shake down walls. They help free people. (Gay rights, racial equality, sexual equality all were boosted by those types of journalists, among many sources.) For me, that's the deeper side of journalism that I want to point to, as an antidote to what you wrote about. I don't think you're referring to those reporters; if anything, maybe just to the overkill of such stories. But when a big story like that breaks, it can change a lot of people. And it does. I just want to mention them, as the positive side to the news, an antidote to what you wrote.

Another fine poem, delicately written, but very strongly argued, all in poetic language. And relevant to this moment in US life, with a terrible election behind us. One trump supporter said, "someone told me, 'how can you call yourself a mother when you vote for trump?'" The supporter---a woman---began to cry: "Tell me, how did my motherhood come under attack, because I support a candidate they don't like? I don't like him either, but I support some of his policies. But don't tell me I'm not a good mother because I support him. That's not fair!" That's a story that deserves to be told. I may feel she's turning to the wrong candidate to satisfy her wishes (and I won't even touch that candidate): But it doesn't mean that woman isn't a loving, caring mother and human being, etc. News media creates that frenzy, which is just part of the damage it does. Which is what I think your poem is about. Life is much huger than the cloistered walls of talk media. Another fine piece of writing, Tara.

Wow! You have hit the nail on the head. And you really stirred the pot with this wonderful piece. I am thankful to read what all our friends have written above. We seem to see the world through the same glasses. Go figure:-)

As for me, I've been an on-and-off TV news watcher most of my life until about 7-8 years ago when I suddenly sat upright in my big brown leather chair and turned off the TV! I finally reached the conclusion that the rat-ta-tat-tat (thanks Mark) of the nightly news was depressing me more and more due to its constant slide into yellow journalism.

As you know, I like to read several newspapers online but I can and do filter out the sensationalism of today's network and cable news.

Your poem should be required reading for all!