Seeing the Nightly News

Sammy Davis Jr. said that he interrupted whatever he was doing when he played Las Vegas to look at the evening network news for half an hour so as to get a sense of what was happening in the real world and found that sobering. He was a good person as well as a good citizen because he would keep up with the topics of the day that might not concern his own life and to be well enough informed so as to engage with a responsible vote. Friends told me, on the other  hand, that it was pointless for me to criticize “Morning Joe” because the program was not designed to engage me in that I was overly educated about politics to gain much from his program. I needed more details and analysis than he could provide. So how are we to evaluate what is in fact on the nightly news so a citizen can judge what side to take on candidates and issues?, not to speak of our sense of what is happening to the world beyond politics? Here is an issue of the PBS NewsHour, probably the most reliable and depthful news presentations, for Jan. 23, 2023 to see how it fares in meeting these needs.

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