Post #53996 by thejab on Mon, Oct 6, 2003 12:57 PM

There is no longer much of a difference on TV between news and entertainment, reality and fiction. The purpose of news used to be to inform the public of current events. Now it's sheer entertainment (at least on TV it is). Likewise, entertainment TV used to be mainly fiction (sitcoms, crime dramas, etc.) or variety shows. Now you turn on the TV and it's all these supposed real people doing stupid things.

There's nothing wrong with entertainment but seeing cops chasing people around isn't what I call entertaining.

When Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" originally was broadcast on the radio in the 1930s or 1940s many people thought we were really being invaded by martians because it sounded like a real newscast. That kind of thing is bound to happen again, on TV.

Now back to our regular TC programming ...