I have to disagree with the Residence Halls Association's decision to cut The New York Times in favor of Fox News ("Fox News, ESPN 2 added to campus TV," SN 6/13). The New York Times brings a balance to cable news (CNN, FOX, MSNBC) by providing in-depth coverage instead of cable's super-quick news bites. Cable channels try to cram too much information in one screen with news crawlers, stock updates, weather in cities that many people don't live in, etc. This information comes by too fast to really get a good understanding of it, and in the last few years this cramming of information has come quicker and quicker, I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future, we have a widespread case of epileptic seizures caused by quickly flashing graphics and news.

You can read The New York Times at your pace and get more information because the story wasn't written to fit a 30-second time frame. The New York Times has wider coverage in its morning paper than cable channels have all day, with better world coverage and national news.

Cable channels' most in-depth stories sound more like tabloid, such as the latest celebrity trials, which tend to repeat the same facts with comments from "legal experts" and just about anyone linked within six steps to the celebrity on trial.

Cable news also suffers from a new trend in media called "balance." Instead of objective investigation and telling of facts from the old days in news, news stories are now battled out between pundits, usually one liberal and one conservative. Even the facts, no matter how scientifically accurate or truthful, are now reduced to the level of opinion by the objecting side. I doubt adding Fox News to balance out the biases of other stations is going to do anything but throw more imbalances into the news.

Philip Moon
telecommunication, information studies and media sophomore