When a news article is newsworthy, then of course it is good, but when it is not news at all it simply is not news. When a famous person bites a non-famous person, that is news; but when a famous person bites a non-famous person, that is advertisement. (Charles Manson, American serial killer, who was responsible for several murders, was once again making news recently.)

Advertising is what keeps the world going. Without advertising, we would soon be a society without a voice. Think about all the radio talk shows; all those talk show hosts constantly tell people about what they are doing. Those are news, too! When you are on one of these talk shows, you are participating in a form of advertising that buys you time and space in the future.

Television networks buy entire blocks of prime time slots to broadcast their news and information to their viewers. They spend millions of dollars a year just to get people excited about the things they are reporting. Advertisers money is the down payment for these slots. It doesn’t matter if the news on television is a disaster, or if it is a success, the ad dollars are going to flow.

All this programming, however, is merely entertainment for the masses. The truth is that most of what people see and hear on television is completely un educative and only serves to give the illusion of knowledge to the viewer. This, of course, leads to a very short lived engagement with the news and the viewer eventually becomes bored and moves on to other programs.

That is why the news on television today is mostly trivial. It’s there to grab your attention for a few seconds, and then quickly fade out so you can move on to something else. The reality of the situation, however, is that most news is important and has some real significance to people’s lives. Whether it is the threat of terrorism or the latest development in health care, most news stories have an impact on our world and our lives. It’s an important part of what we are exposed to on a daily basis. It makes us more aware of what is going on and what needs immediate attention.

This is not to say that all news is bad, of course not. There are many sources of news that are absolutely vital to our way of life. In fact, most people would be blind if they did not for certain elements of news that drive their very survival. When times are bad, we need to know what is going on in order to have the advantage to weather these stormy weather periods and know what to do.