Postman is particularly against coverage of the news and newsreaders who close the programme with the words, join us tomorrow , which often fails to reflect the gravity of the content of the news. We should be traumatised by what we have seen urges Postman. We should not want to join the programme tomorrow and the message is that we should not take the news, which is merely fun, too seriously. The segmented nature of television accentuates this problem. An earthquake for example may be reported on the news, but the next moment we are transported to a fresh and new programme.
Pictures add to the effect by short-circuiting introspection.
A further contributing factor is that newsreaders often fail to adopt a suitable gravity of tone. Instead they maintain an ingratiating enthusiasm. Postman s critique of television is in fact very compelling. While the medium is certainly important to the meaning within the message, there is no proven correlation between a medium whose form allegedly promotes only images and a society that allegedly prioritises entertainment above, among other things, serious discourse, politics and education. If Postman is right to lament a lost attitude towards learning, and the presence of sacred values, there are surely other, less visible factors at work.