American cable news programs, as well as major network news coverage, continue to be terrible. I get BBC News World Service on the radio, and Friday morning I found out about the drastic decline in the Argentine peso, the efforts to save the speaking of a rare North American Indian language in the state of Washington, and details about corporate competition for Alibaba in China, as well as other interesting news from Europe and Africa.
All I hear from cable news, particularly CNN and Fox, is how terrible (or great) President Donald Trump is and what his lawyers and Stormy Daniels and her lawyer are going to do next. National ABC, CBS and NBC news reporting is almost as bad.
Why do we Americans have to put up with second-rate news reporting on TV? Is it because these news outlets are so lazy that they are unable to dig up real news, or are the TV announcers so uninformed (e.g., Sean Hannity, Erin Burnett) that they can’t grasp what is happening in the world and can speak only about Mr. Trump? Perhaps it is both. Unfortunately, many Americans do not get the BBC.
JAMES BUKES
Mt. Lebanon
First Published: May 7, 2018, 4:00 a.m.