To paraphrase Tim Ferris, author of The Four Hour Work Week among other works, “…don’t listen to the news; …listen to all the music you want.”  Wise words to be sure and I must admit that my life has been more stress-free since I took his advice to heart.  For quite some time now I have consciously avoided the news.  From my viewpoint based on the ancient philosophy of stoicism, there are a set of things in this universe over which I have no control and I don’t want to spend precious time in my life worrying about them.

I almost always avoid political discussions; I have my own personal views and opposing views are simply wrong.  It’s not my mission in life to correct them.  But, the wisdom of Tim’s advice was driven home yet again as I was (forcibly) catching the evening news while eating my dinner at a restaurant last evening.  The restaurant had a TV blaring the latest horrific tragedy right on the wall by my table–I couldn’t avoid it.  The news was saturated with coverage of that day’s shooting where 14 people were gunned down at an office party hosted by the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health in California.  You could clearly see bullet-riddled cars and dead bodies on gurneys.  The news was the shootings; the dead bodies were simply for effect.  I believed them when they said 14 people died.  Did I really need to see the corpses while eating?  There was nothing I could do about the shootings.  I could not bring those people back to life nor could I punish the perpetrators.  I could have just left the restaurant.

Of course, the gun control advocates were already calling for stricter gun control legislation claiming that if only we banned guns these things wouldn’t happen.  Banning handguns is about as realistic as deporting 12 million illegal immigrants.  Yet the very same logic they apply against deportation (i.e., there are too many to make deportation practical) mysteriously does not apply to banning literally millions of guns already in circulation.

I really am not sure who is the bigger, more shameful opportunist:  the gun control lobby who is using the tragic deaths of 14 people to promote there own ridiculous agenda again (gun control works really well in Chicago, right?) or the idiots in the news media who are doing the very same and feeding off the sympathy of the American people.  You will be seeing the same video on TV for the next two weeks and ultimately will know how many nose hairs each suspect has.  The exploitation by both groups sickens me.  On average, there are 44 murders per day across the United States (not all by gun by the way).  What of the other 30 people who lost their lives that day?  Since they were likely not spectacular, the news media doesn’t seem to care.

The news is simply a string of tragedies purposefully selected and presented to tug at the heart strings of the American people.  It has become less about fostering a well-informed electorate and more about promoting political viewpoints and commercial agendas on both sides of the aisle.  There is no real civil discourse in this country anymore as most people gravitate toward the news outlet that is most consistent with their own views (e.g., Fox for conservatives, ABC, CBS, NBC and NPR for liberals).  They are simply looking for confirmation that their view is correct and the other side is wrong creating an even more narrow minded view of events and issues.  We aren’t well informed.  A broadcast that presents both sides of any issue and allows us to draw our own conclusions simply does not exist today.  Perhaps it never existed.

One might wistfully wish for another Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite but both had their own political agendas and used the public airwaves to drive it.  Murrow railed against communism and socialism; Cronkite used his chair to sway public opinion to end the Vietnam War and remove Richard Nixon from the presidency (be honest, aren’t today’s politicians at least as bad as Richard Nixon or worse and yet all keep getting re-elected?).  The “Most Trusted Man in America” had his own agenda, selected news items that promoted his views, and admitted to doing so after retiring.  Consistent with Tim’s advice and my own belief that there are things over which I have no control, I am renewing my resolve to not watch any television news.

Where have truth, justice and the American way gone?  If only Superman was here to tell us…