That's NOT Entertainment!

Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Howard K. Smith, and so many other pioneering television journalists would be turning over in their graves if these legends could find out just how their current legatees are handling this business of newsgathering.   

Sorry, folks, but I just don't see news as entertainment.

News is news...period.  

The way the TV arms of this country's six biggest media companies followed this month's recent national events- starting with the 2014 midterm elections- soured me on continuing to watch their offerings, be they on these companies' broadcast networks or on their cable divisions. 

That's right...no more Hardball. No more 60 Minutes. Since the cable provider I've hooked up with dropped C-SPAN and C-SPAN 2 from the provider's basic lineup, the only meat I'm going to get when I turn on my TV set will come from PBS. 

Nobody else on the tube today is performing the role of watchdog.

TV reporters working for the commercial media firms aren't asking the tough questions...questions that help viewers get better informed.  

For instance, the TV reporters (and no telling how many other journalists in other media), while watching the Nuts (oops, I mean Republicans) retake the US Senate and solidify their hold on the US House, could've asked the new lawmakers- the ones vowing to get the Affordable Care Act repealed- to disclose their own replacement(s) for this law they hate so much. (Never mind that the components of the ACA were originally cooked up by GOP minds!)

These same journalists could've asked the Democrats seeking (and unable to gain) office to explain running away from their party's post-1933 accomplishments...let alone its post-2009 achievements.  

And the voters who just got through setting foot at their neighborhood polling places could've themselves used tougher questions...especially the voters in Florida, Kansas, Michigan, and Wisconsin. (People in those four states complained bitterly about their governors- Republicans all- misusing them. But that didn't stop those same voters from reelecting all four of them to second terms.)

Too much cowardice going on on the air...and I don't want to be in on it anymore.

In the meantime, I'll continue to read newspapers...and I'll continue to get right here on this Internet and go to the online versions of those papers, as well as sites like www.factcheck.org and www.dailykos.com.   

Online, you're not as likely to run into the cowardice that's prevented correspondents from Big Media from asking John Boehner to explain not taking Steve King or Mo Brooks to task for their racist comments...or asking this country's Speaker of the House to talk about that meeting he and Mitch McConnell attended hours after Barack Obama's first inauguration. (You know, the meeting where McConnell, Boehner, and other key Republicans got together and vowed: "We're not going to work with this 'N-word!'")

And then there's the grand jury's decision in Ferguson, MO, where twelve people decided to let Darren Wilson go free. 

These last three-going-on-four months, the only outlet in which I saw any mention of the role White privilege has played in Wilson's murder of Michael Brown (it wasn't enough to take Brown to the police station) was...www.dailykos.com. 

Would a reporter from CBS or CNN still have a job after addressing White privilege in America?  

Yes, Big Media, it's been quite a ride all these years of watching the news unfold on my (or my mom's or anybody else's) TV set. Lots of history being made.

But when your reporters aren't encouraged to ask tougher questions than the ones out there, and it's all because you're more concerned about profit and about glitz than about truth, it's time for me to get off the ship.

When I watch news on TV, I don't want to be entertained.

I want to be informed.

Dear Speaker Boehner:

I'm furious with you. I'm just going to come right out and say it.

The night of 1-20-2009, you and Mitch McConnell got together and called a meeting of your fellow Washington Republicans to get them NOT to work with the man who'd just gotten through raising his right hand and repeating after John Roberts.

You know who I'm talking about.  

And, not long after his- Barack Obama's- signature legislation became law, and it was time for the employee mandate to kick in, you begged him to delay it a year.  

AND NOW YOU WANT TO SUE THE PRESIDENT BECAUSE HE WENT AHEAD AND DELAYED THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT'S EMPLOYEE MANDATE!!  

You and your fellow Republicans have been after this man right from the start. McConnell couldn't get his wish to turn Obama into a one-term chief executive, so now you and your House Republicans are trying this. 

Hmph.

This stunt wouldn't even take place if you and your fellow Elephants had resolved to take care of the business America's citizens- not America's 500 largest corporations- had asked you and other politicians to work on.

People want to see this country's minimum wage increased. They want to see this country's borders secured. They want Americans of both genders to realize complete access to health-care products and services. Americans want better, more effective gun-control laws. They also want this nation's infrastructure repaired.

Mr. Boehner, your very district is one of way too many with bridges on the brink of collapsing.

AND YOU DON'T EVEN CARE!!!  

Matter of fact, the ONLY thing you and the other Washington GOPers care about is kicking the first non-Caucasian American to run this country's government out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

You'd do the same thing to Jim Clyburn or Cory Booker or Sheila Jackson Lee or Maxine Waters or Bobby Rush...let alone to Bill Cosby or Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey. 

I remember when Steve King was cracking on some Mexican children and talking about how their thighs supposedly are "as big as cantaloupes," the better to hide illegal drugs.

I was hoping you'd get up the courage to reprimand this bigot from Kiron, IA.

YOU DIDN'T!!  

In fact, I feel you're very proud of the extremists in your party. 

After all, these extremists transformed you from House Republican leader into the Speaker of the House.

Mr. Boehner, I wish you'd find courage before you wrap up your tenure as a US representative from Ohio, let alone House Speaker.

And I wish SOMEONE in Cincinnati or its Ohio suburbs would get the courage to challenge you.  

Throw away your cowardice and start getting your fellow House Republicans to vote on the things rank-and-file Americans are worried about.

You and your fellow Republicans are the biggest threats to American democracy today. 

And it's all because you REFUSE to offer real solutions to get the country back on its feet. All you offer is opposition to any efforts to get the United States really humming again.

And the rest of the world can see that!  

Do you really care?

Sincerely, Jim Boston