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See if you can relate to this. It is 5:00 and you are just getting home after a long day at work. You are getting ready to cook dinner while the kids get some homework done. You flip on the news only to find out that a man went crazy in a local restaurant and stabbed his wife to death, a child was abducted from a local playground, someone called in a bomb threat to the nearby high school which was evacuated, and the commissioner was caught with pornography on his computer. Oh yeah, as a side note a local teen got first place in the state science fair. Your mood at dinner feels a bit off kilter as you talk to your children about being safe when they are out playing at the playground and you ask your husband if he likes dinner because if he doesn't you could throw it out and make him a fillet mignon. This may prevent any restaurant scenes.

The news seems nothing more than a spectacular these days. Pure entertainment, and the media just takes advantage of that. They only want to get you hooked on the drama of other people's lives. What happened to the teen that went on a 6 week mission trip of her own accord after graduation in Guatemala, the mother who started a food bank out of her garage using a coupon program, the family who foster three children who would otherwise not have a family much less a home? They are still out there! Really! You just have to dig a little to find them. How truly sad, yet a perfect example of what television has become.

Now let's take a look at what the news is actually saying. Take for instance the massive number of shark "attacks" that have happened up and down the Florida coast. I say attacks because when the news anchor portrays the information about the attack, they can sometimes make it sound as if someone was mauled to pieces, when a simple bandage, an ice pack, and an ibuprofen will send them on their way. That is not to downplay the trauma they must have experienced, but they did after-all, walk away unscathed. They also portray the number of attacks, like there haven't been sharks in the ocean all along. They are suddenly coming on shore more often and eating everyone! Go in the water with caution, you may see Jaws! No, we just never heard of the all of the shark attacks before the news became the newest reality show!

Let's take food for a moment. Bacteria in produce, hormones in chicken. Maybe owning a farm of your own isn't such a bad idea! Everything seems to cause cancer these days. Broccoli was supposed to put hair on your chest and make you grow big like the Hulk! But now, if you eat it along with water from a plastic bottle, you may as well sign your death certificate!

The nightly news is a television show. It gets ratings and needs viewers. Reporting about the new hometown bakery just isn't going to get the return viewers is it? Which is more important to you, the viewer? How do you feel at the end of your day when you turn on the news? Do you feel informed and ready to face the day? Are you holding your child on a short leash at the mall for fear that someone might snatch her away, and she is 14 years old? Do you triple and quadruple wash you spinach and have you stopped swimming in the ocean?

The media has control over what we do, think, feel, say, eat...It makes you wonder what exactly news is and what ever did they do when technology was not around to present all this news?

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