Melissa Harris Perry has brought up this case many times, and I believe Rachael Maddow has too.

Do they count, though? And I mean that pessimistically. Are they bringing the case to light to people who don't know about injustice like this, or are they telling people who already know how the system is broken?

Because I have to believe people need to know still.

Skimming tumblr told me more about Monteith than that awkward CNN article (like, hey, Canadian!). I can only imagine CNN was taken by surprise and didn't end up dipping into canned obituaries for their [link]

Do they count, though? And I mean that pessimistically. Are they bringing the case to light to people who don't know about injustice like this, or are they telling people who already know how the system is broken?

I can't really answer that. I watch those shows primarily because I want to hear about those cases and news stories I wouldn't otherwise know about, but I'm guessing if you don't want to know about such things, it is still pretty easy to remain ignorant.

I'm guessing if you don't want to know about such things, it is still pretty easy to remain ignorant.

There are also a lot of people who still get their news strictly from Diane Sawyer every weeknight at 6:30, too. So if she's not talking about it, they're not hearing it.

And I'm not trying to take away responsibility for following world events, but the current 24/7 media saturation makes *everything* available in some form, and it's a lot to take in. It's why I turn off sometimes, and just get my news from you guys.

If you don't know there's important news that Diane Sawyer isn't telling you, how do you know to go to someone else to get it? That's what gets news to the water cooler and into hands beyond the people who are already dissatisfied with big media.

If you don't know there's important news that Diane Sawyer isn't telling you, how do you know to go to someone else to get it? That's what gets news to the water cooler and into hands beyond the people who are already dissatisfied with big media.

Is Diane Sawyer's show just an hour? Because, if so, I would think it would be self evident that, even if she wanted to, she couldn't possibly cover all the important news of the day. The thing that really annoys me about the 24 hour news cycle is they often just cover the same 3 stories all day long on repeat, when there are so many important things left unreported or under reported.

The network evening news is half an hour--with ads, feel-good stuff, and whatever is considered the Big Story. Local news in the evening could be up to an hour and a half and sometimes picks up other stories. But I hate getting the news at the speed of delivery of a news reader, so I get my news off the net.

I would think it would be self evident that, even if she wanted to, she couldn't possibly cover all the important news of the day

And yet, many people are going to satisfy themselves with no more than TV evening news (and quite possibly less). If you trust that it's an unbiased cross-sampling of the important issues, going out and getting more information is less pressing. But I doubt that much decision making is going into "I'm not hunting down more depressing shit". If it doesn't break, I'd be sorely surprised that the (NAAL assessed) average reading level of a 13 year old (7th or 8th grade) is chasing down more news in their scant enough free time.

(My literacy argument is just that if more people were chasing down alternative sources, wouldn't the reading level get higher--not scientific in the least--don't waste your time dismantling it, since it won't stand up to much)

People do a quick check-in to see if anyone important has died or if anything has blown up, then they're moving on to the important reality TV after the national and local news. That's if they even bother to turn on any news at all, much less wander over to one of the all-news stations.

The thing that really annoys me about the 24 hour news cycle is they often just cover the same 3 stories all day long on repeat, when there are so many important things left unreported or under reported.

I loathe 24-hour news networks for many reasons, and this is a big one.

Evening nightly news is useless. I watch it when I'm with my parents and I'm just stunned anew at how uninformative it is.

The local news (and I live in a big metro area) is WORSE. Holy shit.