Sunday Post: Watching the News

This doggerel is not specifically Christian. What's it doing in a Sunday post? Is it Christian? For me it is--oh, it is! (And it's a dang shame what the media are comin' to, for people like me and people like you...) Those who want a more specifically Christian thought than fits into a piece of snarky doggerel may meditate on the one source of our Good News, the Gospels.

If we are going to watch the news

The teevee is no tool to use;

It only blares its sponsors' views;

The reasoning mind it will abuse.

The sensible teevee owner knows

It's best for viewing comedy shows.

Newspapers used to do much better

With motives for the call or letter

Or simply sending people money,

But big newspapers have gone funny,

(Not "funny, ha ha"; "funny, strange")

Conserving that which most needs change,

Repeating blindly, without question,

Products of mental indigestion,

Suppressing honest people's thought

To give rich men results they've sought.

It's sad to be cut off and blind

From news that could engage the mind,

But how much have we ever learned

From old reportage, long since burned?

The local news of bargain sales,

Births, deaths, and weddings, passes, fails,

In local papers still is found.

The rest was always passed around,

Dispatched with hasty errors replete,

Then edited to forms more neat

Whether or not more nearly true,

So that what news reached me and you

Quite often had to be corrected

In books, as history was perfected;

How often did we buy those books?

Which stories deemed worth second looks?

That we no more trust "news" is good;

It may be that we never should

Have trusted more the Post or Times 

Than we should trust a blogger's rhymes.

The "Trusted News Initiative"

Gave newspapers one day to live,

And though the presses still roll on,

Their day of influence has gone.

Let editors who want a grip

Start by opposing censorship,

Headline what has been censored out,

Let Schwab and Soros sit and pout;

Even supporting Donald Trump

Beats serving as brain-garbage dump.

Meanwhile, to local news confined,

I wail: True news is hard to find.