Monday, February 10, 2014

TV, Evening News

Below please find links to two poems. Relate one or both to Postman's theories about TV as a way of knowing. Your response is due by midnight, Sunday, Feb. 16.


http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172168


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/weekly-poem-tv-evening-news/

26 comments:

Unknown said...

What I took away from the two poems can directly be tied in to Chapters 6 and 7 of Amusing Ourselves to Death. Within the chapters Postman explains the true effects of television in America on society. He claims television to be used as a support of America’s previous literate traditions. He states that only in certain instances the news on television can be truly informative. Otherwise he believes the news is a burden on its viewers and is a majority of misleading information that is cut and trimmed to meet a certain guideline and to be considered entertaining to its viewers. Postman indicates that a majority of television is designed to gratify people and can only be accomplished by telling only bits and pieces of the story by an attractive reporter or anchor that can be approved by the viewers. The two poems that were posted can be broken down and related to Postman’s statements on television news. The first poem “TV, Evening News” is about a viewer who writes about what she in experiencing by watching the news. She is watching a story on the war in the Middle East and is entertained by the live action footage that is being taken of a tank demolishing a house. In the beginning of the poem, the author is thankful and grateful that it is not them on the frontlines and they can watch it from the comfort of their living room. This is what Postman means when he mentions that the news must only contain what the viewer wants to see and what enables them to be entertained. Although the program may have contained useful information about the war, the fact that the camera was capturing the destruction live was the part that kept the viewer entertained. In the second poem “Evening News” the author sheds light about how much “shit” the news is comprised of. The author would agree with Postman 100 percent in the fact that the news that they are watching is repetitive nonsense that is not really important and is only being reported on for the sake of views and ratings. Overall Postman along with these poems made me personally look at television news in a whole different way and truly made me sit down to pick out these major flaws myself.

Unknown said...

I really enjoyed reading both of these poems. I think, essentially, they were both attempting to relay the same message: that television and the "news" is a giant spectacle. But I really enjoyed reading Tom Legro's poem, I was completely captivated. I think that Postman would agree with this poem, especially, because it really supports his theory that television is more about spectacle than actual knowing. That the spectacle and the entertainment factor is just as important, if not more important, than the facts and the real "truths" behind it.

"I safe screen-watch. A youth
young in his uniform
signals his guard squad
twice: OK go, to the tanks
and the cameramen: OK go."

This is the part that really got to me. It's saying someone in uniform, possibly military or policeman (we're not sure what exactly) is going to take on this emergency, and immediately following is the cameraman: someone who is not trained nor equipped to deal with this type of situation is running in right after, and for what? To get a good shot to make his program more entertaining? This supports Postman's theory of television as a way of knowing, because what do we actually know from this? We know that there was some type of situation where this house is now a mess of dust and is no longer standing. But what about all the people who were impacted by this situation? Where is their "10 minutes of fame"?
Postman says, “Entertainment is the supra-ideology of all discourse on television…That is why even on the news shows which provide us daily with fragments of tragedy and barbarism, we are urged by the newscasters to “join them tomorrow…We accept the newscasters’ invitation because we know that the “news” is not to be taken seriously, that it is all in fun, so to say.”
So what is this to say about our country’s television network “news” stations? This book was published approximately 30 years ago and his theories have only proven to become truer.

Unknown said...

Marie Ponsot's 'TV, Evening News' is the one that I feel relates the most to Postman's ideas on television. In the poem, you get the impression that they are shooting a movie instead of a report. Why? They want to get the best shots so that the viewers are interested.

As Postman says, its just about "informing" (really entertaining) the viewer then pop! Another unrelated story is shoved in front of you. The telegraph was the genesis of what we see in the TV ruled era. There is more emphasis put on moving information around the world then there is on actually informing people.

Just like in the poems. You find out about this war, will it affect your daily routine? Will you try to help? The answer is no. People are watching news just for the sake of knowing,forget and move on to the next thing.

KellySeiz said...

As soon as I read these two poems, I thought of "Next...is" in Postman's book.

Both poems give off the impression that they're barely scratching the surface. You get a cacophony of noise and light, with glances of actual content:

"The audio’s poor. The shouts are slices of noise.
I don’t know the languages." - TV, Evening News

"Lightning; the face calm and knowing;
Seeing, but not seeing who I am;
The mouth may be telling something.

Something about our helplessness;
Something about the confusions of beasts;" - Evening News II


The first poem, particularly that stanza, feels like glancing blows - you're getting snippets of things that are happening somewhere, but you aren't getting an entire image. So is the nature of television: content without context.

Then, in the second poem, a reporter stares emotionless, recounting something that could or couldn't be of value; the author/viewer doesn't know.


"The humiliation was pleasing: tears,
Laughter, smiles, all mingled together.

The light swallowed itself, a balloon
Deflating; somewhere in the darkness
A murmuring let itself go." - Evening News II


In this stanza (also from the second poem, Evening News II) I get a feeling of blurred emotion, followed by an anticlimactic close in which the news team, punctuated by advertisements, deflates to a close, having informed no one no where of anything but a smear of emotion.

Postman explains that this is about as far as television as a medium can go. You can't film any deeper than a 3.5 second news clip when the industry requires such time limits of you.

Unknown said...

Postman's argument is much the same as to the main ideas of the poems. The TV is a medium that stands to display a set of images. These images bring anything conceivable into our homes, forcing it’s way through into our minds. We can’t help but gravitate towards this mode of communication. There is something appealing about how these images are arranged and conveyed that our eyes can’t resist.

As said by Postman, the television is a nonstop entertainment system. It offers us a variety of subjects and doesn’t require much effort to attain. We can’t help but depend on this device for our news and any other piece of information since every picture seems to attract us in a way that a newspaper can’t. This sense of entertainment is what our culture is drawn to.

Both poems depitct the television by describing the set of images that they are seeing. Postman mentions the same scenario – how the eye never rests when watching nonstop images preceding one after the other. Accoridng to Postman, “The average length of a shot on network television is only 3.5 seconds.” But this immaculate notion of how we attain our news is filled with flaws. “No matter what is depicted or from what point of view, the overarching presumption is that it is there for our amusement or pleasure.” Says Postman. In terms of TV as a way of knowing, the validity of these images change since they are distorted by music and editing since the goal is to entertain. So, it seems that all we are actually seeing are images of propaganda that strive to inflict nothing but emotion for entertainment purposes. Is this harmful or just another way to promote enterainment in our culture?

Unknown said...

The poem "TV, Evening News" relates to chapter 7, "Now...This". In this chapter, Postman is stating that what is on TV is manufactured, it's all put together in a way that will captivate the audience's attention and give them something to think about...for 45 seconds. That is until they are slapped in the face with another segment.

"For there, we are presented not only with fragmented news but news without context, without consequences, without value, and therefore without essential seriousness; that is to say, news as pure entertainment."

Postman is saying the news presented on TV is not real, it is presented as entertainment just so that people will watch and it's an excuse to be "informed".

The second poem relates to this because it's saying the same thing, news is pure entertainment.

"It’s a screenful of chaos but
the cameraman’s getting good framing shots
from behind one woman’s back.
The audio’s poor. The shouts are slices of noise.
I don’t know the languages."

This goes back to Postman's statement about content without context. The poem is describing that; poor audio, chaos, slices of noise, good framing shots etc. Then it goes to say "They cut to the next shot." That's what Postman was talking about when he said people are thinking about what they're seeing for about 45 seconds and then they get shown something else completely irrelevant. "...and that you must now give your attention to another fragment of news or a commercial." We are fed so much "information" that we have no time to process it. Then it just becomes entertainment so that the audience can try to keep up.

Julia Tyles said...

Between the two poems I understand 'Tv, Evening News' more. In ‘TV, Evening news’, Ponsot is writing about how she is watching a war snippet that news is showing in Afghanistan. It sounds like she’s saying nothing of importance is actually happening when she describes in the third section about “Achilles is not there…TwinTowers first defenders? not there”, that the news is just showing a war snippet. As Postman describes that “As a television producer, you would be certain to give both prominence and precedence to any event for which there is some sort of visual documentation...always fascinating or amusing, and easily satisfy the requirements of an entertaining show.” The poem from Ponsot and the reading from Postman tie together because the shots they’re showing of the war are just for entertainment purposes. A video is going to entertain an audience more even if there’s no significance to the video. It shows that the news isn’t nessercialy suppose to give out facts about what’s going it’s just a “stylized dramatic performance”. It’s the peek-a-boo world that Postman says we live in. The news will show this event and then that event and then move on to the next event. This will probably happen after they showed the clip of Afghanistan that they’ll move on to the next story.

Unknown said...

I compared Postman to David Ferry's poem "Evening News II". think even just the first words of this poem “The face” relate to Postman. Television is meant to be seen, not just heard or not just to be informative. Even the news that this author is seeing was meant in fact to be seen. I'm sure the face the author sees is very well made up and nice looking, with a great smile. I also see Postman's ideas in the vagueness of this poem “something about our helplessness, something about the confusions of beasts...”. Postman discusses this vagueness and the lack of detail that is able to be televised. He talks about the broadcast of 'The Day After' and the fact that television is not a media for complexity of for thought. “The humiliation was pleasing; tears..” can be related to Postman's idea that television is meant for emotional gratification, and instant gratification at that. Postman begins chapter six with a list of what television, (the technology itself and the media) can be; a library, something to hold things, a radio, a bulletin board for printed word, and especially a light source. Ferry in this poem also compares television to a light source, beginning the poem with the light behind the face and ending with the light swallowing itself, a balloon deflating.

RogerG said...

"Evening News II" is a poem analyzing (as much as poems 'analyze') entertainment in News. It describes how real-life events, when played out on the TV screen, are confused with fiction.

The poem begins with the description of a newscaster. His face is "calm and knowing," yet behind him is "light, shaking like heat." This seems to say that the demeanor and countenance of the newscaster contradicts the drama and horror of the events that he is explaining. That the light is in the background means that it is not on the forefront of the viewers mind, but is the basis of the program; the newscaster just gives the events a sense of ostensible calmness.

The line "seeing, but not seeing who I am," reminds me both of the Postman and Fahrenheit 451. In my opinion, one of the best arguments that Postman made in his education chapter (though he didn't spend much time on it) was that television was not interactive; you cannot ask it questions or temper the lesson to your own educational needs and curiosity. The fact that the newscaster is looking into your living room yet not seeing you reminds me of the "friends" that existed in the world of Fahrenheit 451---the television characters that were projected onto the walls of homes, designed so they seemed to interact with the occupants, but were actually just projections.

The next two stanzas describes the horrifying events that the newscaster may be describing. However, the viewer is detached from these:

The humiliation was pleasing: tears,
Laughter, smiles, all mingled together.

These couple lines smack of Postman because it describes how things become emotionally irrelevant and confused when they are taken out of context and mashed together.

The most important part of the poem is congruent with Postman's theses, but he never talks about it in the book. That is, when horrifying news is crafted to be entertaining, and delivered to us in the same exact way, in the same exact style, that fictional events are delivered, then the viewer ends up treating the events as fictional entertainment. This is a dangerous form of detachment, tantamount to sociopathism, and is one of the scariest things about TV news.

Unknown said...

Both of these poems (I think they are carrying the same message) describe TV news just like a movie or screen play. Everything is laid out like a storyboard and no one cares if the important material is showed if the lighting is good and the sound is dramatic. That's what makes ratings go up, right? That's what gets people to watch, right? So therefore--money. The storyboard lets us know what will come next, not the actual development of the news.

It plays right into what Postman says about our society-that we want, above anything else, to be entertained. Even if we are compromising the factual information that should be the underlying force of any type of news, not just TV, entertainment and profit take precedence.

And when TV news gets it right, like the war parts of the second poem, we are still watching a spectacle, happy that those negatively affected are not close to us. We feel for their losses but there is still a distance that is itself is manufactured by the media as a medium. It's like watching a war movie. It's sad when someone, main character or not, gets killed, but we are removed. Like it's not real. Everyone you are seeing on the screen--actors.

So from this perspective, TV as a way of knowing, is not really a positive thing. It's like getting resources for research from wikipedia. They could be accurate, but anyone has the power to change and manipulate them. Regulation and fact-checking are placed on the back burner 'cause we want our information now and we want it to be entertaining.

Unknown said...


I believe both poems relate to what is being said by Postman in chapters 6 & 7, but find Marie Ponsot’s poem to especially relate. Postman discusses television as a source of entertainment, meant to only entertain the viewer and give little information. On page 87 Postman writes: “The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether.” Which I believe is a very important point; there is no problem with watching television to be entertained, as long as the subject matter that is entertaining you is appropriate. That is to say there is nothing wrong with being entertained by a sitcom but one should not be as entertained by the news.

In Marie Ponsot poem, ‘TV, Evening News”’ she says, “It’s a screenful of chaos but the cameraman’s getting good framing shots.” I think this is an extremely powerful line- it’s not about what is being shown but how it is being shown. The news may be barbaric but as long as it looks good people will be entertained and unaffected by it. At another point she states “My children are thank God not there any more or less than you and I are not there,” which is proving that people are so disconnected from what they are seeing. It does directly affect them, so although they want to know what is going on in the world they don’t really care unless it will change their own lives. They simply want to know the information, to say they know it, and they want the information presented in an entertaining way.

Unknown said...

The central focus behind chapter six in Postman's book, speaks about the entertainment factor not only with TV, but also with our daily lives. TV has created the philosophy that everything that we do as Americans. Because of this idea, this how we receive information, no matter how trivial it is. The viewers of these shows, especially the news, need to be stimulated by images and for very short duration so the attention is always focused on the program an not thinking about the content at hand. In the second poem, we see a literary depiction of what goes on when these images are broadcasted. Within this poem, we can see the rapid cuts of action just within the text. The tanks moving, the woman screaming, etc. are all representations of what actually occurs on the news in America.

I interpreted the second poem as a newcaster perhaps delivering their news with no emotion and in a state of confusion. The light goes down, and the anchor talks about variety of topics within a short period of time. This ties in with the idea that Postman mentioned above. Another thing that he mentioned was the audience acceptance of the anchors. The anchor is not the one who has opinions on the news, instead they are just pretty face which keeps you entertained. This poem I believe reflect on the inner thoughts of an anchor. Where there is a moment of introspection; "Was it my daughter I was seeing?—" But even this moment is overshadowed by the next story. The narrator of this information isn't given time to think about their words on air, and the people at home don't think about it as well.

Unknown said...

After reading "TV, Evening News" by Marie Ponsot; I found both her poem and Postman's theories to share ideas centralizing on how TV is solely for entertainment purposes. According to Postman, TV is manufactured for audiences attention, therefore no real important information is being spread. Postman and Ponsot both agree that TV is a mere spectacle or a medium to pass the time with mindless discourse being communicated. The poem, like Postman's work, focuses on how our media and TV focuses on nothing of real and true importance; that in fact the news is not very news worthy at all.
Both Postman and Ponsot believe that what is being mediated through our TV's and into our societies is not knowledge of real importance. Contemporary TV is knowing how to entertain people, spark interest and sell stories that in the real world isn't very beneficial to really know.

Unknown said...

I think both of these poems relate to Postman’s theories about TV as a way of knowing. In chapter six, Postman argues that television plays the primary role in informing America. He describes how the television has become the number one medium for keeping us informed, but more importantly entertained. The negative implications of this are endless and he uses various examples to strengthen this theory. On page 87 he writes, “ The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining subject matter but that all subject matter is presented as entertaining, which is another issue altogether.” Postman also discusses how in the current television culture, people are losing the ability to reflect on the material they see. The concept of reflection has been replaced with applause instead. No matter what, the information is, it is now presented in a form that aims to please and amuse, instead of a form for contemplation. Based on these ideas, I think the poems convey similar emotions. In Ferry’s poem, he is describing a bleak evening news scene in which emotions, stories and ideas, are being presented in a congested and confusing matter, and are not reaching our brains, but just appeasing our eyes. His description of “seeing, but not seeing who I am,” and “the mouth may be telling something,” reminds me of stories presented on the news without actually being understood by the public. Like someone listening but not interpreting. His description of human bodies courses going wrong also reminds me of how news is presented so incorrectly. It makes me think of how our voices have gone, and our human thoughts and abilities to comprehend have gone. Now without critical thinking, we are left staring at the television, not reflecting, just like how Postman describes. Postman also describes how any and all information we want is presented on the television. Thus, we are not learning, we are amusing ourselves in whatever way we please with whatever we desire.
In Posnot’s poem, the emotionless shots of war being presented to the public are television is horrifying. She illustrates a home being burnt to the ground, and people suffering. Yet, when people watch it on television, they do not become horrified. Instead they might react, but they will watch it and move on, assuming they are informed of the story. Her words strongly convey how emotionless the entire idea is. “OK go,” the cameraman says. The words are straightforward and do not show any care. We read this and think that it is terrible, but do we do anything to change it? When we see these horrific scenes on television, we are entertained, and we think we are informed. But we are not informed, and we are sick, watching these war scenes, and somehow not being effected by them.

Unknown said...

I related TV, Evening News to Postman more. Especially in Chapter 7 where Postman said “It is frightening to think that this may be so, that the perception of the truth of a report rests heavily on the acceptability of the newscaster.” This proves to be true in relation to how Ponsot is describing the war clip where they were stationed. We are relying on what the newscaster is saying. Ponsot said “A youth young in his uniform signals his guard squad twice: OK go, to the tanks and the cameramen: OK go.” Explaining the scenes of the war clip makes the reporter seem more credible. As Postman defines what credibility is “It refers only to the impression of the sincerity, authenticity, vulnerability or attractiveness (choose one or more) conveyed by the actor/reporters.” Describing the shot of what’s going on it does attract the viewer even if it does not necessarily have clear facts.

Unknown said...

One big point from the recent Postman readings is how television today is altered to be entertaining to the viewers. Entertainment and television have become synonymous because people just want to be amused while looking at images on the screen as opposed to being properly informed. The purpose of the news should not be to entertain it's audience, instead it needs to advise people on important issues in society. Both of these poems give off a vibe of a performance and/or depiction of something, like Postman says the news/television is as well. People only want the drama even if that means factual information is misheld. TV as a way of knowing can be a negative thing because you cannot 100% rely on whether all of the facts are true or if some of the story is not being told. As long as society is entertained and okay with that, nothing will change. In TV, Evening News, Ponsot says how "the cameraman’s getting good framing shots"...this adds to the notion of entertainment over news; this segment sounded more like a film being directed than an actual news report.

Unknown said...

Postman believes that television is a tool that was created to support the ways of reading the news that used to take place. Only at times does he think that television can provide information that truly informs the audience. His true view on television that is deceptive information that is put in a small timeslot with the purpose of entertaining, not informing.

The poem that I think relates more to Postman’s theory on television is “TV, evening news.” I think this because the poem describes a scripted scene to show the TV station is more focused on getting the perfect shot, rather than actually informing the audience.

“It’s a screenful of chaos but the cameraman’s getting good framing shots from behind one woman’s back.”

This quote shows how the crew is more focused on getting a decent shot, but the audience won’t really know what’s happening. I think this is because the news stations know people are just going to forget what they are watching five minutes after, so for the short period of time that they have people’s attention they are just trying to entertain them with nonsense.

Unknown said...


Marie Ponsot’s poem specifically struck me when she ended by saying “A dust cloud rises, at one with the prayer of all the kneeling houses asking to be answered and answerable anywhere.” How I interpret this, through the lens of Postman, is that the tragedy’s in Afghanistan while important, aren’t making the general population take some action, so what purpose is it providing to report so much chaos? Why not, for instance, focus on what change could be made for tragedy within your community. While it might not be the same, it is still a tragedy within our reach that could be addressed. Postman says, “Everything is now everyone’s business,” suggesting that the news should focus on being relatively local and largely functional. If news served with this purpose from the time we were born until today, I think a lot of my peers would be trained to take action against problems in our local society, which in effect would probably motivate us to make global changes like those tragedies in Afghanistan. I think Postman would agree that our TV culture today has trained us to be completely inactive and just have many opinions about many things.


David Ferry’s poem also helps us better understand Postman by reminding us how overwhelmingly absurd TV can be. In the “Peek-a-Boo World” chapter, he talks about how an event pops up into our view then vanishes, leaving us with little coherence or sense. This is much like how in the poem the series of mixed events happen and then get swallowed by light like a balloon deflating. While it critiques the news I think it also examines how television itself is problematic. Postman would say that the epistemology of Television goes unnoticed, as questions about how TV shapes or reflects it have disappeared and people have become conditioned to it. I think it is unsafe to be so blind to something that we use to get our knowledge from politics to education to sports because that means we are ignoring how and why we know what we do.

Joe Nikic said...

Upon first reading the two poems, I was pretty confused. I had trouble understanding the meanings of both of them because of the abstract styles of each. After reading both poems a few more times I think both are trying to convey the same message. To me, they are saying that the evening news has an agenda, to keep the viewers entertained and not informed, and entertained for the right amount of time for the viewers to feel some sort of emotion over the 45-second segment. This relates to Postman because in chapters 6 and 7, he highlights both of these ideas. In one example in chapter 6, Postman talks about a rape trial that was broadcasted on television that people followed as if it were a soap opera. It was more about giving the viewers juicy information on a “scandalous” subject rather than possibly focusing on real news that affected people’s lives. Chapter 7 is all about the changing of stories that have nothing to do with each other. “Now…this” is the perfect title for the chapter because we are forced to take in news on a war for a quick segment, and then next we get informed on how drinking more milk can make us happy (or something completely irrelevant to the previous story). Also, an important aspect of the Postman chapters that is only slightly touched in the poem by Marie Ponsot is the use of music and audio. We begin and end the evening news with dramatic music intended to keep us interested and entertained for what is about to come.

Unknown said...

Both of the poems can be directly correlated to the arguments Postman makes in Amusing Ourselves To Death, especially in chapter 7. I think both poems vividly depict Postman's theory in which he believes that decontextualized fragments of entertainment that televised news provides has transformed our culture into one that knows of the world, yet nothing really about it. Marie Posnot's poem "TV, Evening News" I think really captivated Postman's explanation on how short, entertaining "bite-sized" fragments that are visually stimulating are essentially defusing the importance/seriousness of the news, and making it a light form of entertainment. For example,
It’s a screenful of chaos but

the cameraman’s getting good framing shots

from behind one woman’s back.

The audio’s poor. The shouts are slices of noise.

I don’t know the languages.

Each line in the first stanza touches on the points Postman makes in chapter 7. The chaotic, fragmented clips of footage lack any context, yet since they are "good framing shots", it is appealing to the viewer. Without context or value, there is no thought of the viewer, other than that the angle looks nice. In result, serious situations lose their essential seriousness, thus making the news resemble an entertaining. action movie

Unknown said...

I believe both these poems exemplify Postman's theory on how television news acts as voyeuristic entertainment platform rather than a means of informing the viewer as well as creating a disconnect between the viewer and what is being shown. In "Evening New II" the author repeatedly talks about seeing but not knowing what he is being presented with. The author repeatedly uses the word "something" to help emphasize the vagueness of it all. He later says "The humiliation was pleasing: tears, Laughter, smiles, all mingled together" describing television news' voyeurism qualities and the detached segues into stories. The second poem, "TV, Evening News" has war correspondence told like a film, completing devaluing the realism of the events. The author talks about being "not there," experiencing it through the screen and thus removing any tangible effects or implications on the viewer. All of this falls in line with Postman's feelings on entertainment over information in television media.

Gianna said...

I believe that Marie Ponsot’s ‘TV, Evening News’ best relates to Postman’s theories about TV. The goal is entertaining the people, no matter how important the news may be it doesn’t actually invoke any actual reaction from people. If it does get a reaction from people it simply in the moment and as time moves on so does the person’s interest in what the next interesting fact on the news is. Ponsot starts off by saying “It’s a screenful of chaos but the cameraman’s getting good framing shots,” its as if the all that matters is that these shots can grab the audiences attention. Forget the actual content of the photograph and its meaning, forget that the report is about war as long as the shot is good. Shouldn’t those words even without the photo cause some response in people, and it does but the most that we see are peoples idiotic comments online like we saw all the comments that coke commercial generated. It’s a lot of ideas people in our society today are very quick to have opinions about things but never actually act on them. That is why when you watch the news today going from one story to the next, they are usually so far from being related to one another. Newscasters are just spitting out information to entertain the masses.

Unknown said...

What I get from both stories is that the news lacks both meaning and impact, with--much like Postman says in chapter 7--it's sole purpose designed to grip the viewer from 45 seconds segment to 45 second segment. Both poems, though in different ways seem to convey that while the stories might be significant, the news channel do not portray them this way--they portray them in an entertaining way that, as Postman says won't require them to think about a story when it's done. The difference between them is that in Ferry seems to focus on the nonsense that goes into a news segment, and under critical analysis really does seem to be ridiculous when the purpose of news is considered/ In fact, the news doesn't seem to fulfill it's own definitions anymore. The second by Ponsot focuses on a single viewer's experience while watching live war footage. What this demonstrated was that, instead of the news instilling some significant context or message, it acts a shield-instead of being a gateway it acts as a window through which people can view things safely from their sofas. the viewer is excited by the footage, and eventually thankful she isn't there, instead of thinking about what the footage means for herself and her country.
All of this combined with the fact that these stories are designed not to make the viewer think in preparation for the next segment (or course, intercut with advertisement) makes the idea of news more of a sick joke.

Harris Yudin said...

After reading the two poems, I believe that TV, Evening News by Marie Ponsot relates more to Postman's theories about television.
Both Postman and Ponsot make it a point to emphasize the fact that television only aims to entertain the viewers, always searching for ways to draw more viewers in. We would rather be entertained than informed, and so that's exactly what television news stations do- entertain, rather than inform.
Both are very dissatisfied with the way that television is delivering the news to the masses. As Postman notes, today's news is not newsworthy or of any real significance. Stories are shoveled out as interesting time-fillers that leave no lasting impression on viewers. Ponsot, similarly, discusses how when watching television, you will not see significant and relevant stories, but rather short, unmemorable segments focused solely on sparking interest at that particular moment.
It's just one quick, insignificant entertainment piece after another, and Postman and Ponsot agree that this is not how we should be getting our news via the television.

Unknown said...

I enjoyed reading both poems, but the one that really sparked me was Marie Ponsot's ‘TV, Evening News’. Reading the section that said "I safe screen-watch. A youth young in his uniform signals his guard squad twice: OK go, to the tanks and the cameraman: OK go". I think that right was your action to the story. I believe in one of the chapters in his book, he mentions about television, or entertainment, is more for what you are seeing, instead of knowing what you heard. Because seeing the story, with actual footage, is better then hearing about the story because how do we know what us the truth or isn't?

Mariah Brown said...

I enjoyed reading both of these poems. They were both informative and relatable to Postman's theory about about television, he says "It is through television our culture comes to know itself." Images replace reality and manipulation and showmanship replaces leadership. Television shapes the minds of the masses about our society.
Evening News II by David Ferry paints a despairing picture, [Something about our helplessness;
Something about the confusions of beasts;
The consequence of error; systems
Haywire, or working; the stars gone
All wrong in the body’s courses.]

The evening news tends to be exaggerated and sad in content. The notions put fourth about whats taking place in the world tends to be negative, painting a sad picture.

Besides that fact, the news tends to be very sensationalized. "TV,Evening News" by Marie Postman, was descriptive, when she wrote
[It’s a screenful of chaos but

the cameraman’s getting good framing shots

from behind one woman’s back.

The audio’s poor. The shouts are slices of noise.

I don’t know the languages.]

The evening news can often be misleading and very dramatized. Often the content on TV is repressed because media platforms are more concerned with requirements of visual interest.

Public understanding of certain subjects are shaped by the biases of television. The evening news tends to be negative and inaccurate in its depictions and interpretations of current events, while focusing on the negatives as oppose to the positives in the world.