A third and final New York blog posting, and just some randomly associated thoughts of the kind that tend to occur when you are just visiting a place…
When you stay in a hotel it’s inevitable that you will begin to flick through the channels on the TV. In the US, this is a good task if you want to glimpse the world of the ADD sufferer as there is nothing to keep your attention for longer than about two and three-quarter minutes.
It’s pointless and misdirected to be too critical of news coverage in the USA, which is such a large place that many ‘local’ news stories would amount to national stories in smaller nations, but the contrast with, for example, the BBC was telling. There seemed to be a rolling and obsession with the weather, and the only international news stories that made it were the new vice-President’s trip to Munich (Germany), which hardly counts, and the awful wild-fires in Australia. Otherwise it was all domestic. Personally, I don’t believe that Americans are hardly interested in the rest of the world, but they surely are hardly informed.
Some of the commercials were fascinating, though. In particular, there are many that are selling prescription medication (in the hope that the patient will ask their doctor to prescribe?). Some of these ads are very long but are roughly 75% full of dire warnings about side effects, risks and a whole catalogue of even remotely possible disasters if you take the drug. One assumes that this is required by state or federal legislation, or perhaps by the terribly litigious nature of American citizenship, but it does seem very strange to the outsider.
Out on the streets I can report that (big city caveats notwithstanding) Manhattan has become a very clean and safe place to walk and be in, even late into the night. It was a different story when I first went there in 1981 as a teenager and found an exciting but much edgier and messier metropolis. And people still live in neighbourhoods which are in the middle and not the periphery, they still have an amazingly wide range of excellent and varied amenities within walking distance, though no doubt many of these are facing an uncertain future with rising rents and receding wage packets, and they still operate with a directness that other Americans probably find rude but which anyone who has ridden in a Berlin taxi will believe to be gracious and polite.
Chris Dalton's Personal Development Blog 
Chris.
As an Brit living in the US, I note and agree with your observation of the complete lack of foreign news on US TV. CNN in the US does not even resemble its coverage overseas. My experience is that the average american (at least those not living in the big coastal cities like NYC) is not interested in what’s taking place outside their country’s borders. But outside of the big cities in the UK is it really so different? Henley might be the exception…! 🙂
But to go looking for coverage on the TV is maybe the wrong place to look for international news…NPR (public radio) broadcast nationwide (widely listened to by anyone commuting with a brain) and the best of the printed press seem to exceed or at least match their equivalents in the UK. The effectively national newspaper, the New York Times’ content is 50% international and is of much better quality and depth of its broadsheets eqv’s in the UK.
Maybe the correct observation is that the BBC is indeed a unique and rather special institution….which is only possible because of its unique source of revenue. I have no doubt without it, there would be a quick descent in the UK to a TV land similar to what you observed in the US.
Cheers
Mark