Scaros: Everyone Should Cancel Their DirecTV Subscription
When it was announced that digital satellite provider DirecTV was removing Newsmax from its offerings, I so intensely wanted to cancel my DirecTV membership, but I couldn’t — because I had already canceled it long before.
It had dawned on me that paying so much money for a monthly cable or satellite service was an absolute ripoff, considering that I didn’t even watch over 90 percent of the shows that were provided.
Nowadays, if you buy a smart TV and have an internet hookup, you can watch an unbelievable number of shows for free. Newsmax, by the way, is one of those free apps. And if there’s still a show or two you like but can’t get for free, a monthly subscription to a specific channel is only a sliver of the cost of DirecTV (or its cable and satellite competitors, by the way).
Besides, so many of these satellite services hoodwink consumers into a rate that only lasts a few months and then skyrockets, forcing them to call customer service and battle to get another temporary “special offer” that will also expire in a few months.
In today’s world of streaming, it is much easier, and cheaper, to custom-tailor what you watch rather than buy an all-inclusive package.
Last year, DirecTV dropped the One America News Network, purportedly due to complaints that company executives received about that channel’s ultraconservative bent.
Here’s the important part: I think Newsmax is a considerably better network than OAN, but it was wrong of DirecTV to cancel OAN, and it would even be wrong to cancel CNN and MSNBC — even as those two have become so horrible and apparently have forgotten the meaning of the word “journalism” — because canceling any of them is censorship of free speech.
In Newsmax’s case, it’s especially disappointing, because that network’s news coverage is very respectable. Newsmax appropriately separates news from opinion.
I spent a good deal of time as a fairly regular panelist on “The National Edition,” a morning news report on weekdays, hosted by Shaun Kraisman and Emma Rechenberg. While waiting for my segment, I’d watch the entire show. I was always impressed by Kraisman’s and Rechenberg’s evenhandedness. I truly couldn’t tell their political affiliation.
That’s how news reporters (distinguished from opinion commentators) ought to be. They shouldn’t tell us how to think or feed us comfort food information they think we want to hear. They should report the news objectively and let us make up our own minds.
Newsmax brought me on as a panelist mostly for my strong support of Donald Trump and my relentless tirade against wokeness, illegal entry and stay, and media malpractice. But I was always happiest when Newsmax included panelists with opposite points of view, because segments that are just “amen corners” where everyone agrees with each other aren’t particularly enlightening, educational or even purposeful. That’s like bench-pressing 10 pounds with both hands and calling it a workout.
A news outlet that’s not afraid to test the truth in the marketplace of ideas is more credible than one that’s so frightened to lose its base that it will compromise its integrity.
But not only Newsmax fans ought to cancel DirecTV. Anyone interested in supporting freedom of speech ought to be appalled at that company’s blatant censorship. Corporate wokeness has gotten so out of control, it actually may have overtaken transnational trespass (particularly across our southern border) as our country’s No. 1 problem.
Even Bill Barr, Trump’s attorney general who ultimately parted ways with him over the latter’s post-2020 election behavior, wrote in his 2022 book “One Damn Thing After Another” and has consistently repeated since that if Trump’s the nominee in 2024, he’ll still vote for him, because the cancel culture left is far worse and more dangerous than Trump could ever be.
Win-win situations are great. When you reject DirecTV, AT&T and other woke corporations, you’re not only doing something great for America, but you’re saving yourself a lot of money by finding a better service that won’t shamelessly overcharge you.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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