Why can most people....

I'll have to admit, I am one of the guilty! I think sometimes we think that by not addressing or facing something we can just stay in denial that it is even really happening!

The real answer, Karen, is that it takes infinitely less mental discipline and usage to know little tidbits of data than the effort and work necessary to truly work through a set of issues, the cause and effect, what we can/should do, etc.

Most of them watch the Main Stream Media and it is constanlty feeding them the sensational news only!

Most Americans prefer being entertained to having to think... *sigh*

Just a guess, tho... ya'll know I'm just the uneducated Gather hillbilly...

I couldn't tell you about any of the stars unless it's something I hear in passing at the office or when I'm out and about! It's disturbing to me that so many people are just like you described, many of my close friends included.

I think that many people have begun to seek knowledge about specific things for themselves.

I don't care what entertainers do when they are not entertaining, and have started paying more attention to the blurbs on google and MSN today.

But media news is so slanted. So sensationalistic. It isn't often that I even have time to wade through a news program or a newspaper.

I think it's laziness. In a world where we are bombarded by soap opera like news, many foks just find it easier and more entertaining to listen to Brittany's bald problem rather than the new proposed immigration bill. I share in your frustation.

Well, we get bombarded a million times a day with what the stars, etc. are doing but they only run the stock market figures once on my nightly news. Sometimes I wonder ....is the media giving us what we demand or are we just buying what the media is selling?

Heh... my acquisition of news is scattershot. Everyone's is, really. We just don't have time - all this technology, and yet the sheer amount of information to share means that nobody will ever be able to grasp the totality of the news with as much precision as a search engine. We're all just trying to survive the increasing pressure of it all.

I hate the sensationalizm yellow journalism programs they have on T.V now. They even sensationalize the news on stupid things and I have noticed the Media News glosses over a lot of really important news that can affect us nationally later. Some stations and newscasters are worse than others. Some reporters get this gushy breathy voice of near hysteria and their eyes bug out when some juicy gossipy type news that is scandoulous or evil story is told. Especially if it female reporters. I really get annoyed at them. I want real news of what is happening and why but they play up some things til it is ad naseum and brush other that should be said again under the carpet after a once quick over.

I'm with you Karen. However, the gossip even draws me in more than the hard news some times.

If the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Time, etc were displayed on the top shelves at eye level on the checkout counter instead of the "rags" we'd know the headlines. Instead I see everywhere I go about Paris Hilton and how someone lost weight or is in rehab or some older celebrity is dying yet cheating on their wives with their nurse. :D

The ten billion channels on tv are also more about the damn celebs too and the reality shows with them make me sick. We are bombarded by media everywhere and I think to some extent we are mostly a shallow nation that buys into our celebrities and puts them on a pedestal. I personally think they all need to be knocked down a peg or two billion.

I would love to know more about issues that I don't understand. I am not politically savvy. I can tell you the names of our president and the vice that likes to shoot people on hunting trips. I can not name my state senators or even the mayor of Maryland. I don't understand a thing about ballots and vetos and general elections. I can't discuss the war in Iraq as I don't understand the basics.

I am an intelligent woman but the tabloids are easy to read. The put it the simplest terms and repeat over and over the stupid details of Miss Celebs life and how horrible it is. The news is more complex and comes across as boring at times.
Also I can't stand that the Fox news channel also only seems to report on stories that are more human interest pieces than real news sometimes.

Okay I think I am done rambling. If you got anything out of this comment, more power to you.

You know, that amazes me too. Everyone knows who is in rehab, divorcing, doing crude things, or whatnot. No one seems to care what's going on overseas and what impact it has on us as a country.

People just seem to be so obsessed about celebrities and what they have, what they wear and what they do. It is pretty sad. My own mother in law won't watch the news and just keeps it on HGTV and do it yourself type shows. I just don't understand that type of ignorance. We always had a newspaper every day of the week and I remember my family watching the news every night. My mother always liked being informed and I guess having grown up with that type of life, I follow the same way.

Frankly. I think that a lot of people just don't care. As long as their world is secure and happy then it doesn't matter what goes on around them.
Also, the media is so filled with the goings on with the celeb's to the point they are almost like gods. Celeb's are just people, just like you and me. I don't understand what people find so fascinating about them and I don't understand why people think it so interesting to see them in the middle of contraversay. Some people like to watch other peoples troubles, I think, because it takes the focus off their own lives. It's sad, really.

This is an old post and I hope you'll see this. lol