I don’t worry much about Tucker Carlson and his play acting over the Jan. 6 footage. His shtick has long been exposed and he’s just one of many out there with a platform.
He’s predictable.
If you know somebody is lying, masquerading the truth or manipulating facts you have choices:
A) You can watch, read or listen, all the while making note of the untruths, even laughing at the deceit that is so obvious to you.
B) You can call out the prevaricator on their falsities and help make their deceptions known.
C) Simply choose not to watch, read or listen and live life just a little better.
I’m a big proponent of free speech. Always have been. I don’t want the thought process blocked, I want people to say what they mean and mean what they say. That way, I know what I’m dealing with and I can act accordingly.
In 1992, I walked into a music store at the Hollywood Fashion Center in Hollywood, Florida and bought a cassette copy of Body Count, featuring Ice-T’s Cop Killer track. I was on duty and in my police uniform and the startled cashier was still bold enough to ask for ID as the album had a parental advisory label on it.
A superfluous anecdote, I know, but the point is, I never thought the album or the song should be banned. I wasn’t worried (at the time) that the world was going to change and that people were suddenly going to take to the streets and a fury of police shootings were going to start occurring.
Say what you will about the present day, I didn’t believe at the time that people not already inclined to persuasion into violent acts would suddenly erupt in response.
I’m not as confident today. It’s a different crowd out there. Everywhere. The audiences for news and social issue-inspired talk are a distinct blend.
The generation once transfixed by brain matter eroding programs Morton Downey Jr. or Geraldo or Maury Povich has given way to those absorbed in the shows on Fox, MSNBC, NewsNation and OAN.
That’s just the shortlist and that’s just television. Give me a few more column inches and we can go into radio and digital.
It’s not so much the opinions that are concerning, it’s the audiences with those options that are more the cause for unease.
The fans and devotees of these programs, columns, and hosts are so because they’re being told what they want to hear and that’s a problem. There’s lazy apathy involved here. The brains refuse to exercise by entertaining conflict or dissenting content and that’s scary.
No, I’m no scientist or anything for that matter with an ist at the end of it but I can see when people are losing the ability to defend their positions much less comprehend an opposing viewpoint.
We spoon-feed children and small animals because they cannot support themselves but what’s everybody else’s excuse?
Tucker Carlson shows you videos, a lot of which you’ve already seen yet is he providing an alternative narrative for what you’re watching?
Was CNN sidestepping the lab leak investigation in the beginning days of the COVID pandemic?
Online you can choose from any number of websites (think ConservativeBrief.com) that will tell you one side or the other has publicly roasted, destroyed, shredded or torched the opposition or that in response somebody had a meltdown.
The thing is, with nobody or at least very few thinking for themselves we continue on our path to a bad place. There’s nothing wrong with mindless entertainment, we work hard and we’re entitled to a mental vacation at the end of the day.
But there’s a big difference between checking out a rerun of I Dream of Jeannie and trying to visit the issues of the day with people like Carlson or Cuomo.
I would hope we’re still in the business of talking to, even with our audiences as opposed to just talking to them to see what sticks.
Besides, if you’re like me you’re going to be analyzing why Tony Nelson didn’t drop Roger Healey into a volcano sometime in the first two seasons when he was always trying to steal Jeannie away.
Nice friend.
And you’re going to the moon with this guy?
Bill Zito has devoted most of his work efforts to broadcast news since 1999. He made the career switch after serving a dozen years as a police officer on both coasts. Splitting the time between Radio and TV, he’s worked for ABC News and Fox News, News 12 New York , The Weather Channel and KIRO and KOMO in Seattle. He writes, edits and anchors for Audacy’s WTIC-AM in Hartford and lives in New England. You can find him on Twitter @BillZitoNEWS.
