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All The News Fit To Twist

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By STEVE OTTO

sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: March 15, 2009

Back when the world was less urgent, about all you had to do to know if you could sleep easily at night was to turn on Walter Cronkite.

You didn't even have to watch all 30 minutes. The old CBS anchor's face pretty much let you know if we were going to make it through another day. Everything else that was important, of course, you read in Mother Trib.

I'm not quite sure if it was technology that changed things or that there really is that much more going on that requires our lives be constantly updated.

Now, "news" - or at least what passes for news - swallows up our lives. It is everywhere and all the time. Television is crammed with 24-hour news channels. Radio has its share of all-talk, all-news formats, and talking heads with no off buttons.

For many of us, that need to be connected has changed our lives. We don't leave the house without carrying a cell phone. Remember pulling up to a traffic signal and glancing over at the driver in the next car? Sometimes they would be moving around and singing along with whatever it was that was on the radio. You could get a good laugh.

Now that person either is talking to someone on a cell phone or, scarier yet, trying to tap out a text message. My guess is the message is not an emergency.

The advent of online news services and the more personal Internet services such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter allow us not only to connect with everyone we ever have heard of, but plenty more we haven't.

I'm Having Another Cup Of Coffee

There is an apparent need for people to tell others what they are doing at any given moment, which takes what is news to a level I'm not sure I want to enter.

If you are not writing a blog in the "blogosphere" then you must be that one designated person on the planet who is supposed to be reading these things.

We're tuned in, all right, but my question is what are we listening to and is it really news?

There was a face-off Thursday on "The Daily Show," which appears on the Comedy Central network. Jon Stewart is the host of the program. I've heard it suggested that a goodly chunk of America gets its news from his commentary, which is sharp, funny and completely subjective. It is appropriately on the comedy channel.

Stewart had targeted the CNBC business network until one of its commentators, Jim Cramer, inserted himself into the debate. Cramer hosts "Mad Money," which is sort of a "Gong Show" analysis of the stock market.

Cramer then appeared on "The Daily Show" in a confrontational setting. At one point Stewart said, "I understand you Cramer want to make finance entertaining but it's not a expletive game."

That might have been the only moment of truth in the show.

Hosting The Wheel Of News

It is a game. It is entertainment. The competition for our time in a world that seems to spin faster every morning has helped blur that fine distinction between entertainment and news. People I know go on Facebook every 20 minutes to report to other people what they are doing at that particular moment.

I'm not sure if that's news or entertainment but it's more than I want to know. My point is we might be better served living our lives than keeping a moment-by-moment diary of what we aren't doing.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, for more of Steve Otto's musings.

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