Sounds bite

News bites.
Numbers, numbers, happenings from after they happen, don't know why they happened, only blame who is involved, and identify the victim. We are all victims to this kind of reporting, and there seems to be little way to get out of this mentality. Any self help group would listen patiently, but at least one member would be very tempted to say, "Snap out of it!" I don't want to hear why I should pity you, I want to know why I should love you, why I should care for you, why I should listen to you. If all you're doing is telling me the bad stuff, of course I'm going to want to hate you!"
This is what we hear from the news, in the form of a sound bite, in an afterthought, in something that hasn't been thought through. There is no interest before a "story" hits. The definition of a story has become nothing but saying something happened, not why it happened. The only thing it tells us is we should feel sad by the state of our society. I feel sad about the state of news reporting if it's gotten down to that. I don't want to hear numbers. I don't want to hear about victims. I want to hear people's story of hope. I want to hear something in the process, rather than something that's doomed to fail, because it is failing already. I want to hear information that hasn't been predetermined by the order of events, because even though that may seem unbiased, it's really another form of it.
Bias has been one of the main things news has tried to avoid - it can't. There will always be something that biases a story. However, the bias can show both sides of an argument, give equal time - this would seem egalitarian, and it is. It is a bias as well. But it is one which gives rules which does not show favor, and allows the sides that it reports upon to make themselves look good or stupid. This kind of reporting takes skill, time, and unfortunately now, money. It is not one which can be afforded in a Capitalist economy that is eroding in our nation. The bias which is reported is what is "popular" or what is "politically correct" based on the criteria of the owners of the news station. This is part of why the view of victimhood and emphasis on numbers has become prevalent. The news people have tried to fight back. There are still Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh. People do listen to personalities, and Anderson Cooper is the hottie of CNN. But the foundational reporters (like Wolf Blitzer) have become the main kind of reporter who struggle with the networks to report, but to find a vehement compromise, there are pundits who speculate rather than give real information to back such claims up, and there are numbers. First headline of the day which hits both fronts - "2 suicide bombers kill 93 in Iraq." You want to see? Just look at the link for the video, they hide nothing, except the back story of why this is important; what kinds of things these people were engaged in up until this point, what faction they were with, were they a part of a faction? Were they frustrated, were they intelligent, what progressed to get them to this point, as well as how does this make any difference to other people's plans, where was it at, why does it all look the same, why do the numbers not matter any more... Oh yeah, because that's all we hear about in the headlines. All the hope is in domestic politics with an election that's still over a year away, with two minority candidates in the same party already being pitted against one another. How is this fair to either the Iraqis' or any of the candidates? We show the progression of the candidacy, mainly because we're too scared to try and impeach a president who deserves it. We wait. We wait for everything to just wash over us, because if we wait, if we're patient and be good little children, the parental government will just take care of us... The system is just too strong for one measly little voice to try and say, "No! I will not stand for this crap! Down with bureaucratic nonsense!" Reform needs to kick the governmental budget system in the pants, not by cutting back, but by not penalizing those who are fiscally responsible! This is why people compete for more money, or wasteful spending happens. Fiscal responsibility should not mean punish those who are responsible, it should reward them! If we're going to live in a Capitalist system, we should have a government which is apt to work with the system rather than against it. By making appropriations so freakishly laborious, Christmas tree bills pass with ease, no one wants to contest this. And why are they focusing on appropriations bills? How did only a hundred years of change create a process which fills up the agenda of the politicians, rather than the issues or arguments which matter most to the state, as well as to the politician? Why did money in the government become a burden rather than a liberator?