Unless you count the clips shown on the Daily Show.

days of John Cameron Swayze.

"And that's the way it is" for the last time.

I watched McNeil-Lehrer until I moved to a place where I can't get PBS.

On those rare occasion when I am a captive audience to commercial TV news. it's really difficult to sit through an entire broadcast.

I watch MSNBC night time lineup, from time to time. Like you, I can find out what is happening easy enough online.

Been TV Free since 2004, the run up to the Iraqi war. I felt the News media in this country let us all down. I find it very hard to trust them.

but my mom watches it every morning and evening. Almost without fail every time I walk by the tv they are talking about a story I read on DU or saw somewhere else on the internet a few days before.

As much as people will try to deny it, commercials work and TV influences they way people think and feel. When you watch TV, what you are saying is "I'm willing to let corporations control what I think about and how I feel".

Something like 75% of the sensory pipeline into the human consciousness passes through the eyes and along the optic nerve, into the visual cortex where the information is interpreted, associated with memories, other knowledge, etc. Any medium that exploits that pathway-- especially passive exploitation, that needs little or no interaction or higher level processing-- is inherently dangerous, IMO.

It's on teevee, on radio and also on the net w/ a transcript.

You're simply being misinformed the other way. The only really informative program is Maddow.

She is absolutely on the cutting edge of important information.

I like to know what is going on in my city, and I very seldom watch national news.

announces, complete with photo, "And today is Hailey's second birthday!" -- a random 2 year old child is part of a major metro newscast. The chit-chat, idiotic fluff pieces, and self-promotion are just too much. Can't watch it.

to Operating Shocking and Awful, I stopped watching or listening to anything any of them had to say (much to my wife's great relief, as she had grown weary of my constant shouting epithets and hurling shoes at the TV

You don't like talking heads in rectangular boxes interrupting and arguing with each other on your TV screen?

unsolvable problems. By the time the weekend comes along I have problems concentrating on Chris.

Rachel does not do a news show, her show does not even employ reporters, she's the best of them, but the pundit talking head shows are just not news reports although they take on some aspects of the form. The pundit shows, good or bad, do not break news, they rehash news, last time I looked MSNBC has no news show at all. Not one investigative reporter, not even a bad one or a corrupt one, just none at all. News shows do not have 'people screaming at each other'. They have reporters.
I think if people watch commentary expecting news, that is a huge mistake. I think demanding actual news programing is a great idea, instead what I hear here is 'Star Talker X needs even more hours to talk' and of course, all with a TV show also have a radio show so they can peddle airtime to make more millions. The radio shows also employ no journalists, investigate nothing, and pose as 'news' with folks who pose as 'anchors' when what they are is commentator/hosts. They have talk shows, much more like Leno and Ellen than Huntley and Brinkley.
Why is this lemonade so shitty? Because it is not lemonade, it is iced tea.

News is one thing, and television really is a poor medium for most news content. I remember when CNN was new and seriously a news channel (at least most of the time)--it was boring as hell and hemorraging money at least until a war would flair up.

News is currently found in newspapers and just about no where else. OK, television can be fantastic for certain types of news, i.e., scheduled events, wars, the aftermath of natural disasters. The Internet is really becoming a pretty decent place to find the news, but basically it gets the vast majority of its news from newspaper reporters and television journalists. How many true online sites pay real reporters?

Even though Fox News itself points out regularly that most of its programming is not news but is intended as entertainment (as does Rush Lindbaugh)...almost everyone ignores the fact. It isn't about ideology (Rachel and Keith are entertainers too). The entire pundit-driven mess is doing nothing but harming this country.

Chet and David that was a news show
told it like it was
Rather is last of a breed

Liberals have money, and we spend money.

It's time that we take our money and go on strike - start massive boycotts of Republican-friendly media and put our money into liberal-friendly outlets.

Buy Blue, Watch Blue.

That's the only TV news I watch.

choir here that stuff is not news in any real sense of the word with 2 or 3 exceptions I love
http://www.democracynow.org/ news that isn't spewing corporate bullshit 24/7 The only domestic site I know of but Al-jazeera is pretty good.

Plus, you never know......someone might turn the damn thing on.

I am not easily manipulated and throughout my life it has frustrated quite a few people. I believe in accessing everything at my disposal to be knowledgeable. I am influenced by reality. When I walk outside and I see it is not raining I am convinced I will not get wet if I walk outside. If there is a tornado warning it will not come to me in a news paper. I have worked around entertainment and media people all my life and knew long ago that television was a waste land but no more of a waste land than any other form of communication. I don't feel I am doing myself a favor or that I am better than anyone else because I do or do not watch television. People who are easily irritated should stay away from things that are irritating.

Please don't take my reply as an argument. It's just my opinion.

...and only watch TV about five minutes per year, usually when staying in an occasional hotel room. It appalls me every time I watch it. The fact that there is an audience for commercial television amazes me-- I think it's only possible because 1) too many people need outside stimulus in order to entertain themselves and 2) they're used to the drivel that passes for entertainment on television. EVERYONE I know who has turned the box off for a few months or so leaves it off permanently, and reports how much their lives improved afterward.

Television isn't just a waste of time-- it wastes your brain, LOL.

TV is mostly a waste land

time for important stuff like life, friends, family, reading DU, etc. and all you'll miss is who won whatever 'reality' show is the current rage.

I do watch Thom Hartmann on Free Speech TV and of course Ed, Rachel and Chris Hayes on MSNBC as well as several of the new hosts on Current TV. But they aren't really news. For real news I turn to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and Al Jazeera online. Of course reading online the print media is the best way to get unbiased news if you know how to filter your sources.

We watch the local news for 15 minutes. Then NBC with Brian Williams and I read the rest. It's better for the soul.

I also people watch when I'm out in public.
I like to see who is around me.
You can make contact with lots of people if you turned off your phone.

I don't have internet on mine.
Just make and receive calls and pay as I go.
I do not have cable and only watch Rachel now and then.
Oh, The Daily Show is required.

I think I'm rather content with that. There's a life out there.

having blood pressure problems a while back our family doc told me, "Don't watch the news." I laughed but I could see he was serious. So I stopped. I still watch Big Eddie and Rachel. The main page of DU is the way I found out about important breaking stories.

We have a winner!

Welcome to DU!!

I stopped watching CNN and much of MSNBC's morning shows because I got tired of all the false equivalence crap and them trying to make elections tight when the GOPher candidates are deeply flawed. Now I mainly watch CurrentTV and MSNBC's prime time shows, and sometimes Stephen Colbert.

On a different subject, another poster on this thread had mentioned giving up TV completely. That does sound interesting because there are a handful of commercials that I absolutely abhor (including those All State and State Farm commercials), and sometimes I feel as if I'm being told by TV how to think and what to buy. But I don't think I can see myself doing that because it can get pretty boring eventually, and not all TV shows put all their episodes online.

With the Napoleon Dynamite-like teens in the Sheetz ads trailing close behind.

as omahasteve was just kind enough to post, they control 90% of it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002812788

Several years ago, actually.

You gotta keep a level on your shoulders when you watch and listen closely to what the pundits, reporters and all that are saying.

You learn who is worth listening to and who is not. There are some people who I just mute or change the channel. After some time, you figure it out.

Of course, it's always good to shut it off for a little while and step back. There is such a thing as too much.

If you find that entertaining that's OK but don't kid yourself into thinking you are hearing actual news. Instead of news, the public is hearing what marketing ideas Disney, Viacom, Time-Warner, NewsCorp, CBS and GE came up with.

Plenty of people here know it. It also helps to know when it's corporate doing the talking and when it's actual news. Plus every once in a while, you get a pundit that actually knows what the hell they're talking about and it's the truth that comes out of their mouth. That's folks like Maddow and Schultz. They're rare, but that's who deserves as much support as we can give them.

I don't buy the bullshit that it's all the same and a person should shut off their TV.

about 10 years ago, in fact. Maybe even earlier.

Mainly because people are having thoughtful discussions and not screaming at one another.

But then one should not complain and complain about it when the choice is to turn it off.
Folks here complain and complain about the tv news but yet continue to watch. No one's fault but their own. I am pretty sure their remote has an off button.

I sometimes enjoy watching the cable pundits, although I don't do it too often (weird work hours, not home very much).

I never take it seriously, though.

Seems like the usual in this topic.....

Certain exceptions for MSNBC, occasionally, also PBS Newshour, that sort of thing.

so why bother boosting their rating numbers or spreading their bullshit? just turn it off. focus on what's important to you and let the madness scream in its own abyss. the only thing worse than being hated is being ignored. so ignore their monkey screeching.

Don't watch any of it and don't miss it at all.

... almost every time I accidentally do (watching something else and don't change the channel in time) I am treated to either pointless pap or a story so spun that it bears little if any relationship to what is actually happening.

Really, when we lost the media the Game Over phase began.