Regarding Caroline Linton’s column “Places I Never Meant to Be: Personal Ties Offer Reason for Cable in Dorms” (Sept. 18, pg. 3). For the life of me I can’t understand how having cable on campus would’ve enhanced my experience of the anniversary of Sept. 11. As far as I know, every broadcast news station was running specials all day about the events, the victims and their families a year later, the stories of survivors, etc. There is nothing that cable television could have added — it was all said in nearly 24 hours of glorious coverage. But I digress from the true purpose of this letter.
As I enter my third year here at Boston University, I have heard pretty much every argument for why we should have cable on campus. I, too, would enjoy coming home from class, turning on the TV and having clear reception and a wide variety of programming to view. However, I cannot for the life of me understand the argument that we need cable on campus so we can stay informed and watch CNN. The last time I checked, I was pretty sure that we were in Boston and not a media vacuum. I was pretty sure we, in fact, have a media overload with two free newspapers (The Daily Free Press and the Metro), The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, USA Today, radio news and the Internet, all in addition to the “fuzzy broadcast” news.
With all that there is in a major metropolitan environment, I am bewildered when someone tells me they don’t know what’s going on in the world because they don’t have MSNBC. Why not pick up the newspaper and read — or just look at the headlines in the newspaper vending machines! Plus, if President Bush were to announce the invasion of Iraq, it would be all over TV broadcast news, the radio and newspapers.
The argument for cable, in its many forms, comes down to one issue — entertainment. We want to watch the programming that you can’t find on NBC or ABC or CBS or Fox. We want to watch “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” on Comedy Central, the “$100,000 Pyramid” on Game Show Network or “The Sopranos” every Sunday on HBO. The lofty, idealistic claim that cable is to keep us informed is laughable. There is nothing keeping me or any other Boston University student from reading a newspaper except the preponderance of laziness and apathy that is infecting American society and culture.
Now excuse me. I have to go adjust my antenna — Jerry Springer is coming on.
