Who’s Watching the News?

     I watch the network news on weeknights. I generally mute the commercials that take up nearly half of a thirty minute newscast. I see them, though, advertisers know this and subject me to what I am going to call, ‘print overs.’
     Because of these ‘print overs’ and power-point type bulleted text, I still get a good idea of what they are selling. Of the eleven or twelve minutes of commercials I estimate eight minutes are devoted to pharmaceuticals and personal hygiene products.
     The news is generated as a platform for ads aimed at the new middle aged America. You need a notebook and a doctor’s appointment to sort it all out. You can ask your doctor for something that will lower your bad cholesterol and lower your blood pressure. That done, you can get a little pill to cure impotency. If you go this far it is time to get the new instant blood sugar meter. When you feel really spunky there is the issue with bladder health.
     Do you have to go, too much? And who stops mid-go anyway? If you are in there doing the do, why not finish up? If all else fails, there is a company who will deliver your personal hygiene product in a plain brown wrapper along with your magazines that come wrapped in much the same way.
     Okay, I admit, they aren’t pushing girly magazines between sound bites of news.
     I resent the news corporations for selling advertizing that isn’t targeted at a relatively healthy woman who completes the mission when she goes to the bathroom and has hit the time of life when just thinking of giving her husband the added boost of a little blue pill is annoying. Sell me something I will use.
     Make some ‘print over’ one liners. Make me laugh. Entertain me while you sell the sleep aid with some excerpts of a quick text committed by a women under the influence of sleep meds. I wonder how much rest a person gets if she drives, cooks, cleans house, calls a friend or spends the night doing other things with amnesia of the event?
     Inform me with a statistic on the rising STD rates due to the increased activity of the man with clean arteries and a revitalized urge to … you know.
     Thanks for listening. Feel free to comment. And finish up in there!