( o )          TV News               ( o )

TV News is Entertainment
We believe what we want to believe
Our lives are dictated by convenience
It’s hard to understand what you can’t see

What’s on the news is funny but insane
They measure relevance with advertising
They pick the news like a top-40 playlist
The truth gets tangled in the bureaucracy

Don’t shrink truth to a sound bite
It doesn’t fit
There’s no way to remove bias
And you’re full of it

I get my news where it’s pure on the Internet
No censors, big business, or fear mentality
I’m sick of tired of being scared into watching
There’s nothing new that they’ll tell me on TV

Don’t shrink truth to a sound bite
It doesn’t fit
Of all the news that’s fit for your script
I distrust most of it

Just once, I’d like to make the local news
With a song about the local news sucking
I could be that little quirky piece at the end
Puppy dogs, ice cream, and a story about me

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Notes

This song was written about how much television news shows generally suck, how they are less concerned with accuracy than with appearing unbiased (which is impossible), and how they should be considered chiefly a form of entertainment with a little news mixed in (and not the other way around). After I wrote this, I read an excellent book called Amusing Ourselves To Death in which the author, Neil Postman, puts it like this:

"Entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television....we know that the 'news' is not to be taken seriously...Everything about a news show tells us this. The good looks and amiability of the cast, their pleasant banter, the exciting music that opens and closes the show, the vivid film footage, the attractive commercials--all these and more suggest that what we have just seen is no cause for weeping. A news show, to put it plainly, is a format for entertainment, not for education, reflection, or catharsis." 

At the end of the song, there's a verse about how this song should be on the news. Short of the fear of death which they desperately try to inspire in order to improve their ratings, that would be the only thing that could keep me interested on most days.
 

  
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