{"id":66,"date":"2005-12-29T07:48:28","date_gmt":"2005-12-29T14:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=66"},"modified":"2007-09-16T15:10:54","modified_gmt":"2007-09-16T22:10:54","slug":"the-dumbing-down-of-virtually-everything-part-iv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=66","title":{"rendered":"The Dumbing Down of Virtually Everything (Part IV)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Several months ago, I <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/half-mind.com\/weblog\/comments.php?id=P180_0_1_0\">bitched<\/a> about the empty-headed celebrity chitchat that passes for &#8220;news&#8221; on NBC&#8217;s Today show. My complaints are usually ineffectual, and this was no exception: my wife still watches Today on the bedroom TV every morning. Then as now, as I brush my teeth in the adjoining bathroom, I&#8217;m an involuntary listener.<\/p>\n<p>The other morning I listened, aghast, as a female Today reporter interviewed a beauty industry <font color=\"#ff0000\"><strike>shill<\/strike><\/font> representative about the &#8220;anti-aging process&#8221; and how some product or other could initiate that process.<\/p>\n<p>So I have a question: don&#8217;t NBC and Today have some degree of responsibility to report reality, or at least alert viewers when quacks and charlatans present falsehood as fact?<\/p>\n<p>But hey, I haven&#8217;t been paying much attention to medical developments lately. Maybe those wacky <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/Technology\/wireStory?id=1452228\">South Korean researchers<\/a> have actually discovered how to prevent aging. If so, please disregard the above entry.<\/p>\n<p>And if it is true, can someone tell me how to get my hands on some of that stuff?<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#ff0000\"><strong>Update (1\/1\/06):<\/strong><\/font> My friends inform me that Today isn&#8217;t a news show, it&#8217;s an entertainment show. My bad. But even so. . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Several months ago, I bitched about the empty-headed celebrity chitchat that passes for &#8220;news&#8221; on NBC&#8217;s Today show. My complaints are usually ineffectual, and this was no exception: my wife still watches Today on the bedroom TV every morning. Then as now, as I brush my teeth in the adjoining bathroom, I&#8217;m an involuntary listener. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}