Reality & Real time

I can receive MSNCB Europe and CNN Europe on my TV. Sometimes at nighttime there is FoxNews (which I don’t want to see at all). There has been talk about if the »embedded journalists« make sense.

I recognized it when I was in New York on 9/11: the majority of the US public does take “live on TV” for “authentic”. The idea of “real time” being more authentic because the image could not be post-processed by a journalist is fundamentally flawed. Of course you see “more” than you would without TV. But you see far less than required to make a judgment. Good journalism is about closing this gap. It seems there is no space left on TV for journalism in the US. Where are the reports? Where is the investigative journalism? Is this just happening in the newspapers most parts of the US public does not read anyway?

Most of what the so called journalists on CNN and MSNBC do is simply repeating of what has been said by someone. Everything is pledged to the persuasive power of images. Showing a live image of Baghdad, waiting for an explosion to hit is as perverted as television could be.