As mentioned earlier, I'd be concerned about this incomprehensible move by the powers-that-be at a grannie client's senior residence if it was MSNBC or CNN, 6 ABC or CBS 10.
The grannie client at this elder lifestyle community gets her news from the daily Inquirer. She sits on her bed with the paper & reads it. Her eye scans the print & picks out what it wants to focus on. The rest recedes from her view. Never registers.
Absolutely certain she read about Philadelphia presenting the city's 2014 Liberty Medal to Malala Yousafzai - at 17, the youngest recipient of the quarter-century-old prize; she would have skipped reading about the SUV that crashed into a Center City medical building. She would have eaten up the story about the South Jersey nurse who won a $1 million dollar potato challenge ; given a pass to reading about a bill making attacks against gays tried as a hate crime.
The option of it just not registering isn't available with the stereophonic news down on the first floor. It concerns me because it can be harmful to anyone's health, but especially an older person, particularly a significantly older one - like my friend.
There is a massive difference between reading a daily newspaper & watching a news show. The best analogy I can use is cocaine. Shooting cocaine directly into the blood stream, unlike ingesting it as a powder, creates an instant hit. Unlike reading the news in print, when we process it from a monitor - especially a LARGE monitor - our brain gets an instant hit of stimulation, usually negative. An article we read enters the brain via print; television enters directly through the eyes, the ears as its electromagnetic waves literally pass through us. And its side effects can be highly detrimental, lasting long after the oldster has moved past the range of the television monitors.
So, here's the buzz on what's what with the public area tellies at a grannie client's senior residence - seems that the ONLY stations to get air time on the big screens are sports & news. Some say it's the Director of Facilities preference; some heard it's part of an agreement signed with the company that installed the over-sized monitors.
All I know is that on the occasions I've been by, including today, the only programming on any of the screens was the Fox News Network.
Yesterday, being assaulted on both sides by Fox commentators, was reminded of a song from Silk Stockings, Glorious Technicolor. Today, am reminded of Oliver Larrabee's lines in Sabrina - "The 20th century? I could pick a century out of a hat, blindfolded, and get a better one."
Fox News glaring from every large-screen monitor in a senior residence? I could pick a network, a channel, out of a hat, blindfolded, and get a better one. Without question.
Yes, MSNBC is making progress in becoming as unremittingly partisan as the "fair & balanced" network, but it has a ways to go before it comes close to matching Fox for bald-faced fearmongering. My proof of such a blunt statement? Two words - Keith Ablow.
Background: The elderly, especially those who - like this grannie client - are significantly older, tend to trust authorities. Being savvy marketers who understand their targeted demographic, Fox News put together its has its own "Medical A-Team" which included Manny Alvarez, Marc Siegel & Cynara Coomer, as well as David Samadi & Isadore Rosenfeldwhich - and Keith Ablow. Their combined background is given as why viewers can trust them ~ and Fox News. The press releases say it all - the four doctors offer "over 100 years' experience in the field of medicine. We have authored more than 20 books and published countless academic papers."
Been doing a little research since first experiencing the giant monitors beaming scary news phenom at... a client's senior residence. Checked out what an older friend might expect to experience if the channel is on Fox. Is the Medical A-Team real life equivalents of Dr. Gillespie & Dr. Welby, or more like B. A. Baracus & Howling Mad Murdoch?
Which leads me to Keith Ablow.
More background: When an older person - particularly significantly older elders,like the grannie client who is a resident at this elder lifestyle community - hears that someone did his undergrad work at Brown, then completed his psychiatric studies at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine... well, that man is set up in their eyes to be an expert, whose opinion bears listening to, respecting. When he's billed (by Fox & his own website) as "one of America's leading psychiatrists," then he must be a man whose opinion must carry weight.
Keith Ablow is just the sort of commentator that Fox News respects, the sort whose opinion is given, week after week, a coast-to-coast national stage. And, hey - the network just renewed his contract last month, so they must believe he's pretty sharp & insightful. Guess his their idea of the ideal professional.
Hmmm.... What do his for-the-record statements reveal? Let's start out with the mildly absurd.
Fox & Friends were discussing the First Lady's persistence in trying to get American kids to eat a healthier diet. While others on the panel agreed in the message, they doubted her chances of success. Not the medical expert on the panel - Dr. Ablow weighed in with, "And how well could she be eating? She needs to drop a few. Let’s be honest. We’re taking nutrition advice from who?"
Did he stop there? Of course not! He continued: “I want nutrition. But let’s be honest, there’s no french fries happening? It’s all kale and carrots? I don’t buy it. Just saying.” Oh, then he added that perhaps Barack is a better source of nutrition advice because he is skinny. Ah, he does understand - I mean, he did get a medical degree so I'd assume he knows - that being skinny isn't a sign of health, right?
Building from the silly, let's take another look at the sort of thing my older friends can expect to hear in the main public areas of their senior residence. Just one example, from a week ago.
10/14/14 - Dr. Ablow reinforced that he was looking at the president from the perspective of a psychiatrist. In his professional opinion, the president considers himself a "citizen & a leader of the world" rather than the USA, who belongs to no one country, "perhaps least of all this country because he has it in for us as disappointing people. People who've been a scourge on the face of the Earth. And so for him to then say we're going to seal the borders and protect Americans when in my view, in his mind, if only unconsciously, he's thinking, 'Really? We're going to prevent folks suffering with illnesses from coming across the border flying into our airports when we have visited a plague of colonialism that has devastated much of the world, on the world? What is the fairness in that?' I believe Barack Obama is thinking."
Sheez! Speaking from the position of authority - as a psychiatrist - he is putting ideas in the president's head & words in his mouth. Is that considered professional?
But he wasn't done. He speculated that the president believes America should be as threatened by Ebola as other countries because he believes "we are a bad people." He brought up a litany of grievances with the president, dating from the 2008 primaries, and closing with, "It all fits, doesn't it? ... How can you protect a country you don't like? Why would you?"
This is the sort of regular commentary that is touted as presenting a fair & balanced reporting of news. My comments here aren't partisan - they're the observations of a reasonable human being.
Keith Ablow sniggers that the First Lady needs to lose a few pounds, that her husband is more knowledgeable because he's skinny, that he WANTS Ebola to come to the USA (where the most vulnerable with be the poor, the downtrodden, the chronically at-risk), and that he has no interest in protecting the United States of America, the country he has twice sworn an oath to preserve & protect, because he doesn't like the USA. And Fox News is so okay with it, they renew his contract.
Fact - I didn't do my undergrad studies at Brown, nor did I get a degree from John Hopkins, but in looking at a variety of Dr. Ablow's quotes & commentaries, am of the private opinion that if Keith Ablow isn't the very definition of a blowhard (and an unprofessional one, at that, if you ask me), I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who is.
One last ponder... well, for today. Would you want YOUR mother or grandfather, great-aunt or older friend to be subjected to the glaring blaze of any news network in what should be shelter of a welcoming public area? Shouldn't he or she have the freedom to choose to view - or not - news networks in the privacy of their own apartment? I put it to you... and I leave it to you.
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