Monday, August 3, 2015

INTERNET AS A NEWS SOURCE

Al Smith’s free market or supply and demand economics hits TV hard. It is so simple everyone can understand it; consumer demand for a commodity, product, or service sets the price. Like millions of other American, I turn the TV on to listen to the news but instead of news, all I see and hear about deals with some commodity, product, or service. Less than truthful advertisement after advertisement takes up more than 50% of the programming time. The more popular the channels cost the most but are part of the supply and demand scene. News programs are popular because people feel they must know what is happening in the world. According to free market philosophy, all I have to do is turn to another channel if I do not like it. I don’t like the impingement on my time, so I turn to another channel. However, I find the same thing on channel after channel. There is no place to turn. The free market economic system fails again, in fact; it creates a problem. Each element of the program ultimately reflects individual greed. Greed traps us in a cycle. It is simple; advertisers pay money for broadcast time, that money goes to operating expenses, which are minimal but majorly the money goes to salaries and profit. The fact that individuals have ownership of multi-channels is telling; profits are huge. There is a way out of this dilemma that the free market has yet to exploit, which is the internet. The news organization could develop this resource. I can turn on my computer, open a search engine, type in the name of the preferred new organization, and see the latest news free of advertisements. Additionally, I usually can then select the stories of interest item by item. In some cases, I can even select a video clip if I am too lazy to read. The only problem with this approach is that I do not have 30 minutes out of every hour to go to the refrigerator for a snack or drink, or to read a book, or talk to my wife, not to mention the failed excitement missed from not hearing breaking news or news bulletins. Did I mention that the same breaking news is repeated over-and-over again in between the same advertisements for hours? URL: firetreepub.blogspot.com Comments Invited and not moderated

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