CNN: The Layman's Gateway to the World

So I'm watching CNN. That's my first mistake. As of late, I've taken to turning on this awfully conservative news channel once in a while for a good laugh. I can't help but laugh at every headline I see, and the report that follows it usually makes my day.

Allow me to make a few examples out of the headlines as they scroll by:

• The Google Phone. What a load of crap. This reminds me of the rumors that were going around about two years ago about Google secretly designing an operating system that would kill Windows, OS X, and *nix in one fell swoop. I had quite a time posting in the comments of the reports I read about it, trying to explain why Google has no interest in writing an operating system. That's another story altogether, but the point is the same. Why would Google every have any interest in actually releasing their own phone? They're not a phone company. They're a services industry. Google has never released a tangible piece of commercial hardware to date (though they did have a spam filter for businesses that flopped due to its price), and the idea that they'd make their breakthrough with a mobile phone gives me a headache. What is this report really? Well, in the report just made, they associated the "Google Phone" with Apple's iPhone. The reporter said, "[in comparison to] the Apple iPhone, June, $500." That's right. This isn't a report about a Google Phone, this is just more word-of-mouth advertising for the iPhone. This report can't just come out of left field though, so what could Google possibly be cooking up that spawned this buzz? My guess is as good as anyone else's, but here's a stab: a JAVA application to be run natively on cell phones that utilizes their services (e.g. Google Maps, Google Base) in its own environment, outside of the limited WAP browser that most cell phones sport nowadays. This sounds like a gem. But a phone? Come on!
  

• Mandatory Ultrasounds for Potential Abortion Patients in South Carolina. Yes, you read that correctly. Someone, somewhere in South Carolina thought it would be a good idea to tack on yet another requirement for a woman who is already making a hard enough decision to have an abortion. Now, I may be biased for this one. I'm Pro-Choice (or Anti-Life, as I like to say), and think that if a woman decides not to go through with a pregnancy, she should have the full right to do so. Its her choice, its her body. But someone thinks that its their right to toy with her emotions even more, and force her to watch and ultrasound of her unborn fetus. Scare-tactics galore. Also, there's one more question that needs to be asked: "What do we do about pregnant women who are blind? They can't see the ultrasound. Will they be unable to get an ultrasound within the state of South Carolina?"
  

• (From the ticker at the bottom of the screen) Internet attackers are increasingly using targeted emails to swipe credit card information, an Internet survey released today says. More fear mongering for your grandparents. First of all, I'd like to call the studio and ask them one question: "Can I get a source? Or will that Internet survey's producer remain anonymous, forever buried beneath the mile-a-minute headline ticker at the bottom of your feed?" This is a practice called phishing, and has been around since people realized just how dumb other people are when they start using a computer. Honestly, this problem isn't on the rise anymore. Email service providers are wising up. People themselves are slowly realizing to look at who sent the email, something that can stop 75% of all phish mails in their tracks. This sort of social engineering based attack is on the decline, and while it may never fully disappear, is not on the top of the list of problems we should be focusing on.

Do you see what I mean? CNN is guilty of so much fear-mongering and omission of the truth that I'm surprised they're still operational. The problem is that the majority of people (oh yes, THAT majority) lack the basic thinking skills to question what's being fed to them as they sit in front of the screen. They perpetuate this filth by tuning in for hours, boosting the ratings and jacking up the prices of advertising on the channel.

Television makes you stupid. It's been scientifically proven that the brain shuts down when someone sits in front of a TV. Books have been written about it, one of my favorites being Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. Let's face it. Television should be the last place you go to learn facts about the world around you.