Letter: News Sources!

Dear Editor,

I took note in the Reader’s Column of someone taking umbrage after I shared quotes from Trevor Noah and Stephen Colbert. I’m glad that this person had a laugh because they were meant to be humorous, but these two are among the best when it comes to political satire. Regarding “The View”, I have never watched this program. My only knowledge of it comes from Fox News.

I get my news from a variety of sources but do watch CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. Fox gets pretty outrageous many times. The network engages in fear mongering much of the time and it is currently in court for a $1.6 billion lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems over claims on Fox that its machines changed votes from Trump to Biden. 

However, Fox carries a number of stories that I don’t hear on the other two networks because they would cast a negative light on Democrats. I watch Gutfeld as well and do agree with him that the support, which the Democratic Party gives to “wokeism”, is excessive. 

Bill Maher of “Real Time” on HBO is also in this camp. Bill Maher’s program is one of the few places in the media where you can get a fairly lengthy discussion of current events instead of the “snippets” that is the standard fare for nightly news.

Fox is constantly complaining about what the “mainstream media” isn’t covering. Excuse me? Fox is mainstream media. For the most part it has played the part of “State TV” for the Republican Party, just as MSNBC has been “State TV” for the Democrats. Not sure where CNN falls into the mix because it has been in quite a state of chaos for the last few months. 

There are numerous alternative news sources out there. You can go to Wikipedia for “Alternative Media” (US Political Left) and use the same term for US Political Right. The entry for the political left has a nice listing which is very convenient; the political right is in prose and not as complete as it should be. (Is this bias?). 

I get news feeds from Truthout, Reader Supported News, and Democracy Now! One other source that made me smile was “Redneck Revolt”. They support the Second Amendment but describe themselves as anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-fascist. Eugene Debs is alive and well. 

I’m a card-carrying, dyed-in-the-wool, long-time news junkie. I actually got an award back in eighth grade for my interest in current events. I feel sorry for the people who would like to keep up with such things, but if you are in the day-to-day grind of making a living, paying bills and raising a family, how can you manage such things? It’s important that enough of us stay in the boxing ring of competitive viewpoints so that our democratic norms don’t go the way of the buggy whip. 

My other news sources are magazines. I subscribe to about a dozen or so including The Nation, Mother Jones, Time Magazine, Harpers, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, the London Review of Books, and several environmental publications. 

I do enjoy watching how the “spin” of the newscasters shifts over time. Now that the “Trump card” did not play out as well as expected in the midterms, Fox has shifted in its genuflection to the “Tangerine President”. They could certainly play snippets of Trump rallies where you wonder if “our greatest President” forgot his meds before getting on stage. 

If the Democrats decide that Biden would be a liability running for President again, will MSNBC focus more on his age and turn his “gaffes” into mental deficiency? Maybe they will just let the Republicans have their way with the Hunter Biden investigations. 

Lastly, I want to put in a good word for the Owego Pennysaver. In a time when so much print media has disappeared or has become a shell of what it should be, this publication does very well keeping Tioga County residents “in the know”. I keep reading and posting in the “Readers Column” because its important for me to know that when I’m standing in line at the grocery store, the person next to me might be one of those who views me as a “naive libtard threat to democracy”. 

Sincerely,

Ed Nizalowski

Newark Valley, N.Y.