It's pretty sad really

How bad is it when a person who wants to go into the journalism field can't watch the news without wanting to bang his head against a wall? I really don't know but in case you're wondering that person is me.
Let's be honest, the news sucks lately. I'm not talking about the stories, I'm talking about the coverage. Don't worry journalism, I'm not blaming everyone. I am however blaming the 24 hour news networks such as MSNBC and FOX News. I try to be funny when I write these posts but there's nothing funny about the extreme lack of knowledge being shoved into our craniums from these so called "news" stations. Where to even begin?
Lately I've been reading a book about the Columbine school shooting in 1999 by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. The entire book is filled with accounts of things that I find appalling, one of those things happens to be the way the event was treated by the media. To put it simply the news did a terrible job at that one. There was no trench-coat mafia at fault, the two teens did not listen to Marylin Manson, the two boys weren't goth, they were not picked on (in fact they often bragged about being the people who picked on others), the killings were not retribution killings, and the famous martyr story of Cassie Bernall saying "yes" about her belief in God is a falsity, and the shootings were not an attack on Christians by Atheists. However, all of this was reported by the media during and after the attacks. Why? Because no investigation was done, they simply went with what they heard, threw their own ideas into it, and ran as fast as they could to get the story out.
Things have only gone downhill from there. I'll give CNN credit, it at least makes an honest effort to be middle of the road and do it's research. But other stations can not be given the same credit. I point mostly to the aforementioned MSNBC and FOX News. If politics was a see-saw FOX is a fat Rush Limbaugh (not much of a stretch) on the right, MSNBC an overweight Keith Olberman on the left, and CNN a sometimes goofy Wolf Blitzer standing right in the middle (sometimes).
Now, here's the question. What was the last thing you heard on FOX or MSNBC that actually helped you learn anything? I can't remember it. The reason is because they don't strive to teach you anything. They simply put three talking heads (one usually being the anchor who is always supported by Guest 1, while Guest 2 usually ends up being someone who supports the opposite side but clearly has no idea as to what they're talking about) on screen that yell the points back and forth at each other without citing any sources for their so called facts. They then somehow always run out of time when the opposing and dim witted Guest 2 finally finds a good weapon to use against the two talking heads who are constantly shouting over them. You learn nothing from this...except talking points.
What they expect you to do is go do your own research on these talking points and then make your own decision. But that's not what happens. Let's be honest, when was the last time you saw a news cast and said "I believe I'm going to go research that." I'll be surprised if you can name a time. There's no reason to be ashamed of it, we should have gotten the information from the damn news cast! But, instead all we got was a bunch of opinion that should not have been there at all.
It's simple really. The slanted media doesn't like to give facts because the facts usually don't hold up to their standard of making the people who disagree with them look like sniveling idiots. So, they simply use the tactic of flushing out small flaws and never allowing the other side to defend itself properly. Both sides are guilty of this, we've all heard of the "liberal agenda" it exists, but let me assure you that so does the "conservative agenda".
So let me ask you, how sad is it when the best reporting you can find on TV is done by someone who had admitted that he does not consider himself a journalist? I'm talking of course about Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" fame. It truly is sad when a guy who we all know leans to the liberal left does a better job reporting and gives a more balanced opinion to the conservative right than people who's job it is to actually do so.
I can go on and on about how bad the media has become at it's job. But basically all the blame can be put on the fact that they're lazy. They don't want to actually research things they just want to blast as many things at you as they can, even if those short little spurts of info are full of opinions that the rules of journalism say shouldn't be there in the first place. So what's my final thought on all of this?
The people I've been ranting about (Bill O'Reilly, Shawn Hannity, Keith Olberman, Ed Harris, Rachael Maddow, Glenn Beck) aren't journalist.
They're talking heads. And what's better....
Some of them are just plain jackasses.