Not living in the US, I sometimes hear about hot news items there that permeate the airwaves that never seem to make it far outside the US. It’s hard to imagine, I guess, that most of the world doesn’t know who Anna Nicole Smith was (I didn’t either), who the latest candidate is as the next “American Idol”, or who Dick Cheney has shot at lately. It’s not that the rest of the world is somehow being censored; it’s just that in some places people recognize the difference between gossip/propaganda/frivolous titillating novelish stories and what might be considered actual news. The bias of news media outlets in the US automatically disqualifies much of the content from being re-broadcast at “news” : entertainment has taken the front seat, and so US news is generally treated as such.

I imagine it like this: the news guys here are aware of the US news reports (and probably watch them), and patiently make a list of the topics and subject matter. Then they cross most of them off, saying “This is not news, that either, that either, this is entertainment, this is just sensationalism, that’s just political blubbering, ….” until they find the few and core news stories that matter. If most people in the world don’t care about the death of a former model waning on a drug induced lifestyle, then there is a good chance that it probably isn’t actually worthy of being news.

Anyway, I’m happy about having the European News Filter (ENF) in place. It keeps my mind from growing dumber, and I don’t even come close to the likes of FOX news and the ridiculousness that sometimes appears on the tube.