Our News Consumption is Alive and Well; We Crave Information; Too Bad Our Local 'News and Talk' Station is Bereft of News; Sunday Rituals

  SUNDAY 

We are now, more than ever, better informed than ever. One can find fault; many faults actually; with the outlets that deliver the news to us, but with the Internet, cable, local TV and radio, streaming devices, we get our news almost instantaneously --take a look at the awful events in Charlottesville --we saw and heard the beginning, the terrible middle and end. It was both tragic, haunting, and disturbing --but there it was on an otherwise normal mid-Summer Saturday. 

I bring all this up because we all have rituals; we are a very ritual-oriented society with a deep interest in news. Look at all the cable shows and Sunday shows. Observe how much time we spend on the Internet, on Twitter, on blogs like this one--we DEVOUR News. We're not a very expansive audience --we tend to want information these days as fast as possible, even if all the facts are not in, hell, facts be damned in some cases.

All that said, we love our news consumption even if the news, like Saturday's sundry, is awful. One MAJOR outlet we all call on, even in this Internet age, is radio, more specifically, "News-Talk" Radio, remember that age-old relic? We used to have a great station here, KGO, that was the gold standard for such formats and now, (yes, you've heard my bitching many times, but it's important) it's basically been erased into a vast radio wasteland with a ridiculous, foolish, hideous BS format based on an incompetent PD's lazy attempt to cave to PPM (Personal People Meter) models that haven't worked here and are an assault on people who want to be informed and not considered dim bulbs like the dim bulbs that currently run KGO.

My ritual--I don't know about yours--is immediate look at the Internet (I have no life); the on-line Chronicle; SF Gate; NY Times print and even though I hate to admit, Drudge Report and WashPost. There's others but I won't bore you. I'll then tune into the radio and hit KGO, (still, out of habit) and KCBS. I'll check KNBR if there's a game on to hear who's on assignment (smart ass, I know) and quickly, KQED, and when I'm exhausted or depressed, KCSM to relax and at least neutralize my misery. 

But I'm a news whore. Radio was my natural destination because it was immediate and concise --and KGO had the immediacy advent to both "hear about it and 'talk about it." It was a winning formula that got KGO 30+ years of #1 ratings and universal envy from the industry and praise from the LOCAL community at large. Don't give me BS about how the world has changed and yada yada yada. GOOD Radio doesn't have to cater to modern-day BS, the "7F" Bullshit that has kidnapped KGO and made it a local laughingstock --GOOD CARS sell. GOOD food sells. It's THE PRODUCT, STUPID! This isn't brain surgery --(shit, I could run KGO and know better than anyone what I'm doing, but that's another posting for later.)

We are news connoisseurs and large in numbers; the Bay Area deserves all the very best outlets to bring to us our information cravings. Too bad the box on radio consumption is still left alone.