Increasingly, I find I am being driven back to a couple of locals for tv news. KTLA is good. So are WPXI and KDKA, in Pittsburgh. Just today, I found myself installing KABC, Los Angeles.
I was watching Al Jazeera, for its extensive coverage of the Middle East, but it has now become nearly all-Gaza, almost all the time. Which probably makes sense, given the channels location and the scope of the atrocity, the absolutely unspeakable slaughter that’s taking place there. That said, I need a little more variety in the coverage of world events.
Eurovision, was also a pretty good option, until they left reality for what appears to be AI generated programming. If I’m wrong, then my apologies, but it sure sounds like AI. Whatever it is, it isn’t working. Neither are the novice anchors France24 is using, most of them being nowhere near ready for a prime time debut on an international stage.
With the great newspapers and the network news operations dying off, locals may be our broadcasts of last resort? And if they eventually die off, we’ll have nothing left but the “get what you want and not what you need” Internet. For me, PBS, has always been a little dry. With or without federal funding.
It’s happening much faster than I thought it would. Kinda like Trump establishing his oligarchy. Or should I say, dictatorship? As the free press takes a dive, tyranny goes for a ride. In a big convertible with the top down. Never thought I’d see this in our time.
How ironic it will be, if we are left with local tv news as our broadcasts of last resort, with all else having been either bought off and shut down or completely corrupted by soulless predatory capitalism spearheaded by a foreign oligarch. God help us if the Associated Press goes away. If it does, we’ll be left with nothing but local news, which will be better than nothing, but far less than what we need.
The BBC and SkyNews will still be out there, probably. It’s difficult for me to imagine those two British institutions replacing the once mighty CBS, NBC and ABC networks. It is though a thread of hope to cling to, I suppose.