you know, we turned the TV off 17 years ago.

[NewHendoLib]

I lost my job, and we decided what to cut. I was fed up with the hyperbole, repetition, lies and distortions anyway.

In times like these my wife and I realize it was one of the best decisions we could have made. Just spending an hour daily on DU reading headlines, which describes the continuingly worse distortions and lies, I truly don't understand how people can expose themselves to it for such long stretches of the day.

Nothing I've read here, or on TPM, Slate, NYT is surprising. But it is pathetic, whether it us the "both sides do it", gaslighting, or outright lies. It is clear it is ONLY about eyeballs, ads, clicks, and money.

No thanks. I appreciate the fortitude of you who have the stomach to watch it all and bring the info here. I have neither the stomach or the patience.

[Demsrule86]

1. I walked away from cable after the election was settled... I simply couldn't stand it anymore.

I have TV for entertainment. I use Philo which is only 25 a month and a couple of other cheap channels...lots of free stuff too...more TV than I can watch. I watch the local news only. DU gives me a good picture of what is going on

[NewHendoLib]

2. we use ours for movies on Prime, PBS and Netflix only

[Demsrule86]

4. I have Prime and Netflix also...we contribute to PBS so we get that.

[Demsrule86]

6. If you miss cable later try Philo ...many cable stations for 25 a month.

They do not carry news though.

[msfiddlestix]

8. It really is liberating

You can check in to du to monitor events and current outrage without having to suffer through by deliberately watching, while feeding the cash cow operations that designed designed to keep you breathlessly hooked and watching on your dime into their pockets peddling piles of poppycock endlessly.

It will be absolutely life changing for the better. I promise you.

[Lochloosa]

9. 8 years without cable. Never looked back

Get a Roku box.

[Demsrule86]

11. I love Roku...the Roku channel has great content...and they do have news...I don't watch it...

[Jim G.]

5. I Still Have TV's

But I go weeks sometimes totally ignoring cable news.

I watch a lot of sports, nature shows, documentaries, home improvement shows, stand up comedy & old movies. I really only watch the news when there's actual breaking news happening lately.

[HipChick]

7. It's been just over 3 months for me

Don't even miss it..

[Treefrog]

10. Nah, won't give up TV. I love me some BritBox.

I rarely watch tv during the day, but I enjoy old shows on Peacock and other streaming services.

[Demsrule86]

13. I have Acorn right now...I am watching Modern Ms. Fischer and there is a fairly recent

Ms. Fischer movie...also I watched all of the Agatha Raisin mysteries. I like British mysteries. I watch a great deal of interesting TV...I simply don't have cable and pay very little for it.

[Treefrog]

16. I've read the Agatha Raisin mysteries, but didn't know there were shows!

[Demsrule86]

17. I think there are three seasons. Sadly the author recently died. I love those books.

[Treefrog]

18. Yes, I read that she had.

Have you read her series with the Hamish MacBeth character?

[XanaDUer2]

19. I'm getting Acorn soon

cannot wait

[Demsrule86]

27. I like Acorn. I try to get channels tnrough prime... east

tochange if you want.

[MuseRider]

12. I watch a little every day.

Usually I try to catch CNN with Berman and Keilar. It used to be on all day long, my husband was totally addicted to it. I watched some but got increasingly uncomfortable with being pummeled all day long with it. He now spends time at his computer with earphones.

It is terribly hard on a person to immerse themselves in the news shows. Much better to keep up and immerse yourself in political activism and work. Find your spot and go for it.

[Demsrule86]

14. I agree...and I simple couldn't be agitated and upset all the time...

[colsohlibgal]

15. I Kept Cable

I have everything on my cable except more soccer. I watch a bit of CNN and MSNBC at night.

I have a bit of everything including Sirius XM Radio run through my stereo system.

When I was young it was 3 black and white Channels...current pop music was on AM, nobody had figured out FM was better, no static at all as Steely Dan pointed out in a song.

Yes the current news is often awful, dumb seems like it’s own Pandemic but I like to stay informed.

[Captain Stern]

20. I still like TV

I use my television to watch shows that I enjoy.

I'm glad your decision has worked out for you and your wife. Well done.

However, I do wonder why you still spend an hour a day on DU "reading headlines, which describes the continuingly worse distortions and lies"

It seems like to me like you got rid of your TV to get away from that stuff, then just found some other way to get exposed to it.

[NewHendoLib]

33. no. I want the essence of news. I don't want endless breathless repetition

and ads.

[Treefrog]

39. Lol.

Pay closer attention.

Repetition is a big thing here.

[DavidDvorkin]

21. There's much more on television than news.

[NewHendoLib]

32. we stream movies. no tolerance for ads

[DavidDvorkin]

38. We watch some very good series and the occasional movie.

[ShazamIam]

22. I agree and also dropped the talking heads long ago. The worst of it is all the emotional

delivery, the emoting over every event as if it is foretelling the end of the world. And the purpose is to tell you what to think, not what is going on.

[IronLionZion]

23. Journalism in general has gone downhill over the years

there are tons of opinions, misinformation, repeated stuff from other sources, etc. instead of reporting the facts of what happened. It's pretty disappointing.

There can be good visuals like the people hanging off the planes, but there is clear bias. They don't show a lot of the people who have been evacuated and gotten visas for their families to settle in the US or how to help. Afghani people are flying into military bases in the US and need help with housing, clothing, food, transportation, etc. News doesn't show much of that.

[SheltieLover]

24. Same here

No TV service as I have zero tolerance for rwnjs & their bs.

[infullview]

25. What we need to do is bring back the Fairness Doctrine

Last edited Tue Aug 17, 2021, 10:51 AM - Edit history (1)

for both cable and broadcast. There's some theory that says since cable is private that the fed can't regulate it. To that I call bullshit. Cable uses infrastructure at least partially paid for or subsidized (and regulated) by the government as a sanctioned monopoly. There's no reason we can't tighten the reigns on this technology and force real news standards as a PUBLIC SERVICE.

[Demsrule86]

29. SCOTUS will never allow it.

[Kali]

26. DU is pretty much it for me

always ahead of anything else. the only other sources of "daily" news for me are Democracy Now! (which I miss, 80% of the time) and NPR in the car occasionally.

[rainin]

28. Accidently ran over my TV with my car and never bought another one

We were in the process of moving and I had a mishap with the car where I hit the accelerator instead of the brake. I elected to see the demise of my television set as a motivation to stop watching TV. My kids were little and it changed our lives for the better.

Obviously, now, we can watch "TV" all day long on the internet, but my kids weren't raised on commercials, so it was a very good choice at the time.

Note: Still don't own a TV

[usaf-vet]

30. We cut the cable 10+ years ago. We have internet streaming. We make the choice what to stream.

The TV doesn't come on until suppertime. Many nites it's just background noise while we enjoy our hobbies. Some nights we watch a movie or the next episode of our mysteries on Britbox or Acorn.

In the morning I go to 4 sources to check "news" DU, WP, Guardian, and AP.

I check my email several times a day. Old habits acquired while working as a consultant in the IT world.

My wife has a similar morning routine with her chosen sources of news, hobbies, and family contacts.

NOT ONE live MSM show ever.

[h2ebits]

31. I have never had cable

I've been using an antenna of one sort or another and never willing to pay for cable. I am the owner of a tv, computer with Internet connection, and a Roku stick that I plug into my tv Currently I pay for Netflix, Acorn TV, and PBS. Plenty for me.

[Scruffy1]

34. I got rid of mine over 25 years ago.

Haven't missed it a bit. With the internet it has no use. I used to wait through the "news" for the weather report. The local news was always sports and traffic accidents with one or two minutes of "human interest" to fill the time on the clock.

[hibbing]

35. I was a "political junkie"

I used to spend time watching MSNBC and flipping, but 5 years ago I stopped. I don't see myself ever going back to that.

Peace

[GusBob]

36. March 4th 2003. Over 18 years TV free

Did they ever find those WMDs they kept yapping about?
And oh, are people still falling for that reality TV bullshit?

I will say it: people who watch a lot of TV are idiots. What makes me laugh my ass off when people around around here whine when Rachel is on vacation. Poor babies!

Never ever forget: we had a reality show TV president, who sat around watching TV while hundreds of thousands of people in this country died

[infullview]

37. Turning off the TV may help, but you still have sources all over the internet that are worse.

And, they use algorithms to target and reinforce people's own opinions thus making them even more polarized/radicalized than people who just passively sit in front of a TV and let Rupert tell them what to think. Look at what's happening with "Q" !

[Paladin]

40. What you've done is a mixed blessing.

On one hand, you've avoided a huge amount of shitty TV coverage of shitty politics.

On the other hand, you've missed "Bosch."

[NewHendoLib]

48. oh, we stream series. just no news, no ads.

we are working our way through silent witness.

[Jetheels]

41. I'm envious of you guys limiting your news exposure.

I think I have a news addiction. And I have not had a tv in decades. Or cable. You can watch most things now just on internet. I find it takes me reading a ton of news to figure out what is going on. And DU is about the only information source in the last couple days that is not trashing Biden.

[brooklynite]

47. I don't find it envious; I find it troubling...

Too many people are willing to live in an information bubble where every voice needs to agree with theirs.

[seta1950]

42. My only tv source is

Rachel maddow , I don’t watch any other news

[Warpy]

44. I turned off broadcast news the same year you did

I didn't have cable, so it was only the nightly suits who were treating the presidential election like a horse race, reporting breathlessly about where in the country each horse was but doing voice overs so nobody got a single word in and you didn't know anything about either candidate. The competition at the time was reruns of "The Simpsons," and that show had more real current events in it than the nightly newscast.

Broadcast news is bloody useless. I can't imagine being sucked into 24/7 cable blather about nothing. I'll stick to print as long as I can still read and probably say fuck it when I can't.

[hunter]

45. Television news and opinion is worthless to me.

I quit shortly after September 9, 2011. Didn't want that shit in my head.

My wife was never a fan of television news.

Eventually we quit cable and broadcast television entirely.

We were watching DVDs exclusively until one of our children, who is a huge fan of low and medium budget movie making and was home from college at the time, set us up with a basic Netflix account. That's $8.99 a month these days.

When I was a kid growing up our family didn't always have a working television, much less cable. Maybe that's why I never learned to see television as any kind of necessity.

What time and money my wife and I save by avoiding broadcast and cable television entirely we probably spend on e-books and electronic newspaper subscriptions.

[NewHendoLib]

50. it's entertainment to make money. period. we don't miss it a bit!

our lives are much happier without it

[brooklynite]

46. Of course, the next time someone recommends a really great news piece...

…CNN’c summary of 1/6 say, or a great Rachel Maddow interview, those principles will go out the window and people will be asking how they can watch it for free.

[LizBeth]

49. Mine was 17 yrs ago too.

[ananda]

51. I haven't watched msm for months now.

I get my news elsewhere.

[lindysalsagal]

52. I cut the cable, and unless there's an insurrection, I don't miss it.

I can listen to msnbc in my car on sirius.

[Lars39]

53. The only thing I'll tune in now is Psaki's press conferences,

hearings, and Biden's speeches. The rest is pretty much dreck that raises my BP.

[NewHendoLib]

54. we don't even watch that. no news, no politics, just movies and series

[Lars39]

55. Very freeing isn't it

We did that for a long time.. not even sure when we cut the cord. Life’s too short as it is to get sidetracked.

[NewHendoLib]

56. incredibly liberating!

[MineralMan]

57. OK. I don't mind. However,

We access the Internet via our cable connection. I tried other things, but they were too slow. Also, we watch just two things on TV. Local and national CBS news and MSNBC. That's it. My wife streams a few streaming programs late at night, and we occasionally watch a movie on the TV.

It's a personal choice. For me, I choose to watch CBS for my daily brief news programming. They don't do much analysis, and it's important to keep up with local news in a timely way. We also get the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, but everything in the newspaper is a day late.

So, the local CBS outlet, WCCO, tells us about the weather and lets us know when roads are closed, as well as covering local news with almost no commentary at all.

I have access to all those other channels, but I exercise my choice and do not watch them.

But, I have no brief with people who have shut down their TVs. It's just not my thing. Local and national news programming on CBS, NBC, and ABC are what they have always been - a brief run-down of the day's events. Not everything shows up here on DU, which focuses primarily on major stories and political news. Every day, I learn things on my CBS news programming that I would not know about the same day if I just used DU for my news coverage.

You do what you do. I do what I do. It's not something to be proud of, either way. It is just what we do.

[electric_blue68]

58. I check Local tv news, WNYC, NPR, DU, Buzzflash & orhers

that that come up on my FB or I remember to check.

TV. For dramas & comedies.

[Blecht]

59. I stopped watching after 2004

I really have not seen more than a few 5-minute stretches of national TV news during that time when something big was happening -- only to turn it off again when I was reminded why I stopped watching in the first place: bullshit framing, bothsiderism, lunatics with lots of airtime, etc.