For the the past year and a little more, I have not been getting my news from TV. It has been an interesting experience.
During the 2012 November Presidential election, there was an overdose of debates (serial talking points, rather) and fundamentally flawed calls by the TV pundits. The most famous example was that of Karl Rove who, on live TV, called the actual results wrong because they did not agree with his models or forecast!
During the spring Boston Marathon Bombings, I had a different experience to TV than during the 9/11 attacks. During the 9/11 attacks myself, my family and my friends who were camped at my house were glued to the TV. Even during the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai when the Taj Hotel was under siege, we had the same experience as 9/11; being glued to TV.
But during the Boston Marathon bombings, we were completely off TV. We were getting better and faster news on our mobile phones through channels like Twitter. The TV talking heads were struggling to keep up with the developments, were often wrong and chasing sensational angles - according to what we were hearing and from later analysis.
For weather, local traffic, school closings and other such day to day needs, email and the internet have become much for timely, accurate and effective substitutes.
With the Boston incident as the catalyst and the mobile internet as the avenue, we have completely stopped watching TV news and commentary. In fact, we do not have a TV anywhere except the, ahem, the man cave. This is where NFL football watching happens.
Please don't get me wrong - it is not that we don't have 'screen time'. Between the iPads, laptops, iPhones and between AppleTV, Amazon Prime, Netflix and YouTube, we do catch up on selected shows. We even binge watch if it is called for.
But TV as source of useful and useable information has just evaporated for us!
What has been the effect of this?
One an interesting dichotomy has developed. During this current 'Polar Vortex' I was getting a fair number of messages of concern from around the world. I was similarly concerned about the rest of my friends and family. I was also minding my business and traveling to NYC and DC, carefully of course.
We even had a frozen pipe at home and I had to go around the house and make sure that there were no leaks anywhere in the house to the extent we could plug the holes. However it did feel like a Boston winter with some icy conditions to deal with. Since I no longer watch TV, I was wondering what decibel level was being used to communicate these winter conditions.
In another instance, when we took a vacation to Turkey this summer, there was a huge noise made about the troubles in Istanbul. We visited the actual park - Taksim Square. After we got comfortable with the city in a few days, we ventured towards Taksim Square. And to our pleasant surprise there were no demonstrations or protests. In fact, there was nothing going on other than shoppers and tourists milling around. We ended up having an excellent lunch there and idly watched people walking by.
Given all this, I wish the hard working people on TV good luck with their efforts and enterprise. But for the purposes of news and analysis, the TV appears to be no longer useful, at least to us.
During the spring Boston Marathon Bombings, I had a different experience to TV than during the 9/11 attacks. During the 9/11 attacks myself, my family and my friends who were camped at my house were glued to the TV. Even during the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai when the Taj Hotel was under siege, we had the same experience as 9/11; being glued to TV.
For weather, local traffic, school closings and other such day to day needs, email and the internet have become much for timely, accurate and effective substitutes.
With the Boston incident as the catalyst and the mobile internet as the avenue, we have completely stopped watching TV news and commentary. In fact, we do not have a TV anywhere except the, ahem, the man cave. This is where NFL football watching happens.
Please don't get me wrong - it is not that we don't have 'screen time'. Between the iPads, laptops, iPhones and between AppleTV, Amazon Prime, Netflix and YouTube, we do catch up on selected shows. We even binge watch if it is called for.
But TV as source of useful and useable information has just evaporated for us!
What has been the effect of this?
We even had a frozen pipe at home and I had to go around the house and make sure that there were no leaks anywhere in the house to the extent we could plug the holes. However it did feel like a Boston winter with some icy conditions to deal with. Since I no longer watch TV, I was wondering what decibel level was being used to communicate these winter conditions.
In another instance, when we took a vacation to Turkey this summer, there was a huge noise made about the troubles in Istanbul. We visited the actual park - Taksim Square. After we got comfortable with the city in a few days, we ventured towards Taksim Square. And to our pleasant surprise there were no demonstrations or protests. In fact, there was nothing going on other than shoppers and tourists milling around. We ended up having an excellent lunch there and idly watched people walking by.
Given all this, I wish the hard working people on TV good luck with their efforts and enterprise. But for the purposes of news and analysis, the TV appears to be no longer useful, at least to us.
2 comments:
@Surya - I agree that TV's current configuration is starting to look like the shaky legs befallen the newspapers! With their vast resources and connection to interactive (e.g. Comcast & NBC-U), I wonder if they can pull out a save as controlling commercial enterprises?
As for the Polar Vortex, I had a much more difficult personal experience with the PV! First we lost our heat in our home... and have been living off of electric heaters for 3 days. Replacement part due in 3 more days! Second the water stopped working at our rental lakehouse in the Poconos. Turns out the pipes froze underground (first time this happened in nearly 7 years of ownership).
The PV may not have impacted you... but some of us really felt its bite!
There are three important reasons for the demise ( almost ) of the TV news. First, the biased news with MSNBC and FOX news taking the extreme opposite ends to a point they are sickening to watch. The second is the unbearable commercials. They have no rule or rhyme or even brains. Plane stewards serve pigs, men run after a pig to put money in its head -- I can go on. When cable TV started in 1965, is was touted as TV without commercials! Paying to watch TV was novel. Then there is the third, which you have mentioned, the rapid development of technology. No one has the time to sit and watch the dumb analysts keep spinning as if they have the crystal ball. Chord cutting has gone from a novelty to a necessity.
Father
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