Drew Cunningham

Dr. Soulis
FYS Section 4
9/21/12
Information or Entertainment?

Todays world has been described as an age of technology and information

leading many to believe that we are better informed than generations of the past.
But after examining how technology is used and the information that it conveys, a
much different view is shown. The American discourse has changed greatly, and
many would argue for the worse, as Neil Postman explores in his essay Now...This,
from his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show
Business. Postman discusses what he feels has negatively affected the American
public discourse and critiques how information is gained by the average American
citizen. The main culprits that are discussed by the author are the advent of
television news programs as an entertainment source, disinformation being taken as
knowledge, and trivialization of information through media sources. These three
factors help to illustrate Postmans thesis that American news programs have been
reduced to short broadcasts that serve no purpose to the public other than to
entertain the populace.
The first point that Postman uses to defend his critique is his description of
the phrase, nowthis, and how it is the single most terrifying phrase in the
English language. Newscasters use the phrase nowthis to shift topics of
information and to give a flow from one unrelated news story to another. Postman
explains how this has led to the perversion of discourse and information exchange

through segmenting news programs. Each segment of news is divided into short,
eight minute timeslots and no story is given more than forty-five seconds before
being cycled through to another by using, nowthis. No thought or consideration
is given to any particular story causing the report to become an entertaining
rundown of what went on in the world on any given day. Equal weight is given to
human interest stories (such as the release of a new iPhone in todays news) and
breaking news of a murderer being caught by the police.
The entertainment aspect of news is shown also through producers choices
in theme music for the news program as well as who will be an anchor on the show.
Postman use the fact that every segment of news is introduced with thematic music
as evidence that news shows are only entertainment and are no longer a form of
serious discourse. Also, the choice of a news anchor is troublesome for Postman.
Producers have chosen their anchors to be attractive and likable by the public so
the stations will receive high ratings. An example used by Postman is the lawsuit
involving Christine Craft. Craft was hired as an anchor for KMBC-TV in Kansas City,
but only held her position for a short seven months. The reason she was fired was
that she, according to court documents, hampered viewer acceptance. This
simply meant the public did not like her appearance. How could televised news
casts be taken as a serious way of gaining information when something as trivial as
the appearance of the person reading the teleprompter causes lowered viewer
ratings?
The second major point that Postman uses to critique American news
programing is disinformation being taken as truths. His example of this in the text
was the New York Times article that was headlined: REAGAN MISSTATEMENTS
GETTING LESS ATTENTION. This particular article discussed how Reagan aides used

to become alarmed when the president gave out misleading information during
interviews. This influx of misinformation was no longer an issue, however, because
news stations did not cover stories of the president dispensing misinformation as in
depth as they once had. The reasoning behind this was, according to the New York
Times article, declining news coverage mirrors a decline in interest by the general
public. (Postman 113) Postman offered this article to support his thesis because it
clearly shows that since the public was not interested in whether the president was
misinforming them or not, news stations quit reporting these instances altogether.
In his essay, Postman discusses how writing was the main discourse during
the 18th and 19th centuries and as a result the average American was more
informed and the press was essentially a lie detector. The press checked
misstatements because truthfulness was a high priority to the public. It is
interesting to note though that even with print being the form of discourse of the
nation, many citizens were more up to date on events than today even, with the
advent of television and more recently the internet. The reason for the drop in
awareness is due to news becoming an entertainment source, rather than to inform
the American population of the events happening in the world. Postman writes,
Americans are the best entertained and quite likely the least well-informed people
in the Western world. (112) He also uses several polls that show 70 percent of the
population do not know the Secretary of State or the Chief Justice of the Supreme
Court. (112)
The lack of media covering important, but non-entertaining stories to the
public leads to the third point that Postman uses in his essay: the trivialization of
many stories. News stations gloss over the grizzly details of many stories because
this is not what the public wants to see. The phrase nowthis has contributed

more than anything to many Americans disinterest. As Postman states early in his
essay, There is no murder so brutal, no earthquake so devastating, no political
blunder so costlyfor that matter, no ball score so tantalizing or weather report so
threateningthat it cannot be erased from our minds by a newscaster saying,
Nowthis. (108) The American populace has developed a sense of information
ADD and cannot dwell on serious thoughts for too long. Entertainment has become
the discourse through which information is distributed to a citizen of the United
States of America; and for Postmanas a cultural criticthis is a serious issue.
In conclusion, Postman asserts through his discussion of televised news as
entertainment, the misstatement of facts, and the trivialization of certain news has
led Americans only to want their news to serve them as a source of entertainment.
Any information is condensed to fragments and paraded across a screen with
banners and a short musical motif. American discourse has drastically changed
through the years, but many would arguePostman includedthat it has not been
a change for the better. Televised news may be the way that we view news, but it is
most definitely not the way in which we gain information.

Work Cited
Postman, Neil. ""Now...This"" 1985. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in
the Age of Show Business. New York: Viking, 1985. 108-16. Print.