As I mentioned in a previous post, my mother was a television reporter/anchorwoman for many years.  Back then, the news was, comparatively, boring.  It consisted of…well….the news.  Local and regional politics, sports, weather, a human interest story here and there.  It wasn’t exciting, but it was…wait for it…relevant.  (Click here to see a newscast featuring my mom in 1977…you’ll get the idea!)

Today we don’t have the news.  We have “newstainment.”  Like everything else in our current reality, the bottom line is the bottom line, so you have to make the news “sexy” to the viewer in order to make the big bucks.

I recently was introduced to this totally “over the top” video produced by Jon Stewart.  In it, he lampoons CNN’s Rick Sanchez for his sensationalism, misinformation and his “over-caffeinated” approach to the recent earthquake and tsunami in Chile.  I do not endorse Jon Stewart’s language or his perspective in general, but this is hilarious…and it makes the point.