As soon as Saddam Hussein, former President of Iraq, stepped into the Iraqi court with his colbalt blue suit and died black hair nearly all of the 24-hour television news shows went ballistic trying to get a ‘piece’ of the action.
I began thinking. What is this? The next reality TV show? The 24-hour news television shows such as BBC 24, ITV24 and Fox News tried to analyse everything and anything regardless of how pointless it was.
What happens if the Judge hands down a death penalty, which according to the media – is simply a formality; will the TV news show the actual hanging or whatever form of death penalty they inflict? If they do, doesn’t that make us worse than Saddam himself?
I am not indicating that Saddam is guilty nor innocent [edit], that is for the Judge to decide[/edit]. But I am feeling quite uneasy about the way this trial is being put onto our screens. I think that the TV shows try too hard to make us think a certain way. How do they do this? By repeating certain stories every 20 minutes.
I stopped reading newspapers a long time ago because they put on a certain level of ‘this is the way you think’, and I’m moving away from the whole ’24’ hour news culture and I’ve learnt to read various stories from various sources to form my own mind.
Of course, there’s always the ‘off’ button.