Yeah. Even if the info was good, the art was transcendent, or the news were honest, which they aren't, TV is one case where I think the medium itself is corrupting. If the mere act of using it puts the user into a trance state (and it does! That cut, cut, cut editing, flicker from light to dark in the scene-- that's not done for storytelling reasons. It's done because they've actually run the studies and found this is what disables your brain so that you keep watching instead of wandering off to tinker with your bike or read a book)... that's not good. I mean, think about all the people you know, and count how many you would trust to hypnotize you, and then make suggestions to you while you're in a receptive state. 0? 1? 2? How often would you be OK with running this experiment?

But the whole concept of television as it currently exists, and as most people use it, is that you're going to sit down for at least a couple hours every single day, and have total strangers perform this task on you. For "information" and "entertainment".

How did this ever get to be a thing? It's completely baffling.