The Vast Morass
It’s the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for, you just
may get it.” I was completely satisfied
when news began to be presented on the web.
Unlike newspapers it was free, and every bit as good.
Over the past few years that has changed about as radically
as possible.
At first the various concerned web sites presented in depth
news articles. Along the sides of the
sites were sidebars with advertising, but you didn’t have to go to them if you
didn’t want to, just like in the newspapers.
Then the brilliant ad people started adding movement to the ads which
made it nearly impossible to ignore them.
At least you didn’t have to put up with that in the newspapers.
Then some savvy ad person got another brilliant idea. Why not make the web sites more like TV by
adding videos. That way an advertisement
video could be added prior to the news segment you wanted to watch, forcing you
to watch the ad. Now approximately half
of all articles on the supposed news sites are prone to this.
Then the ad people found out they could trace everyone’s
viewing habits. If you searched for some
item, even for a friend, they could inundate you with ads for that item, even
though you had no use for it at all. One
thing led to another until the ad folks discovered that a great percentage of
the viewers were only studying items of prurient interest, or about
celebrities. Presto, a great percentage
of the items placed on so-called news sites are now only those items.
The news, as such, is disappearing. There are several wars being fought all over
the world, but hardly a word is to be found about them day after day. No, it is more important that we are spoon fed
the latest twerk of Miley Cyrus in place of those mundane things like war and
peace. Of course, in order to see that,
we have to be entertained with yet another 30 second video about some object
nobody wants, much less you.
No comments:
Post a Comment