News Coverage and Shacking Down

I’m going to remount my soapbox and rail against the flavor and tone of the news media. I’ve complained before about the descent of hard news reporting into quasi-entertainment programming. It produces an uninformed public which in turn produces a November 2016 effect. Now that the media has Trump in position to pummel daily they completely lost their focus on what’s going on in the rest of the world.

Americans have always tended to pull our collective head into the shell and tout isolationism but those days are gone. We live in an interconnected world which is why I’m so dismayed that our national media seems to report on nothing other than Trump’s latest misstep. There’s other news going on around the world that people should be more invested in. We have a failed state just south of us in Venezuela which is also one of the world’s largest oil producers. The wave of displaced Venezuelans is having a significant impact on Northern South America as well as Central America. A major land battle is underway to take back Mosul, one of ISIS’ last remaining major cities. Russia continues to eke into Ukraine while denying it to the compliant West. All we hear about are Trump’s latest bowl movement ponderings, tie to wake up.

I took in The Shack last night on dateless date night. This movie is the type I’m usually a sucker for but it missed. A father undergoes an unspeakable tragedy which has him cursing God and losing touch with his family. Then comes a weekend spent with the holy trinity, literally. In a bit of typecasting Olivia Spencer plays God accompanied by her Son and the Holy Spirit in human form. There are some very poignant moments as the father is forced to confront his anger and loss of faith but they are too widely interspersed with lectures you’d hear on any late night televangelist show. I liked the message and many of the scenes but the writing was too stilted to bring the message convincingly home.