Sometimes when it is really late at night there is very little on television worth watching. On one of those nights, I happened to flip way to the high end of my satellite’s channel listing and came across Free Speech T.V.. I was unimpressed at first, since I happened to flip to it when the show on was 5 minutes of a cricket standing on a pocketwatch (no kidding). But I left it on that channel when I turned the T.V. off. The next morning when I flipped the T.V. on, there was a documentary showing called Toxic Sludge is Good for You. Now that was a program.
If you have ever been in doubt as to whether or not your local news stations are reporting actual news or not, you really should watch that documentary. It goes into a great amount of detail about what isn’t actually news, how and why it is on the local news, and who is paying for it. I think everyone knows (even if they hate to admit it) that some of the stories that make it onto the six o’clock news aren’t really news, but advertisements. This show details how the ads make it onto the news in the first place. Even if you think that such an idea is a ridiculous lie, you should still watch it, just for the differing view.
The next show to come on was Liberty News. Liberty News is political news with less spin than I have ever seen. While I am pretty sure that it is definitely a product of democrats, I think that is only because there is no news channel in the nation with the balls to show anything even remotely critical of the Bush administration. To those who would disagree with that statement, making the argument that Rove, Delay and Santorum (among others) have taken a beating in the media, I have to point out that they committed jailable offenses and the so-called “liberal media” is calling pursuing charges a witch hunt. Clinton got a little head in the white house and people were calling for his resignation, yet even mentioning the charges against Bush administration officials(I just had to) is considered taboo. I can’t say that Liberty News is actually politically left though, since they also took Hillary Clinton to task for her campaign statements not meshing with her voting record. Showing the truth about both sides and letting you form your own opinion? What a novel concept.
If you have FSTV on your channel line-up, I urge you to flip it on and watch a couple of shows. Much of what is on does look like it was made by college students who were really stoned (a cricket on a stopwatch?), but when it gets to the documentaries and news, you are never going to find an outlet that is as critical of both sides. It certainly is a welcome alternative to the Rush Limbaugh and Larry King crap that fills the airwaves now.