"Now....This" Reaction

To be honest, my first reaction to Postman's Chapter 7 "Now....This" in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death was being surprised. I didn't realize that most anchors today are being selected based on their looks and how they are able to talk on TV. Men can't be bald, Women have to look pretty, they can't have big noses, their eyes can't be to close to each other. They also have to be young. I said to myself "no way!" because at first I thought it was true. But Mr. Postman have you seen CNN's anchor and correspondent Christianne Amanpour. She's famous for all her talks with world leaders. She's one of the better journalists and anchors of the world to be honest. But she's also 52 years old. She seem's a bit overweight. She is not attractive. What about Richard Guest? I am sure everyone has seen him on TV. The guy with glasses? Slim Body? Yeah he is 48, he is not a great looking person. But the thing about these two anchors is that they both know how to talk on TV and interact with viewers. That is what I think CNN do. They choose those who can interact with the viewers, not basing them on their looks.

I was also shocked with Postman's criticism towards the news channels itself. Postman criticizes news broadcasts because they give useless information and are never too elaborate on it. He said that 90% of America doesn't know the religion of Iran. He said 90% of America doesn't know who Khamenei is. Mr. Postman can't blame that on the news channels--the news channels share information about what is going on in the world, or at least what they know of. It's not their fault that much of America views national news channels and not international channels. And Mr. Postman CANNOT just point the finger at the News Channels like CNN, blame the education system.