Folks, here is the news: I’ve stopped watching the news. Now, this might not be earthshattering news for you, but it’s been fantastic news for my long suffering family.

To be honest, I stopped watching commercial network news some time ago, when it dawned on me that most of their alleged news was actually paid for advertorials. Plus the political bias was so blatant you could almost hear the producers prompting the news readers: “Smiley face for Party A, frowny face for Party B!”

Still, they’re amateurs compared to the political leanings of a certain newspaper that will never line the inside of my recycling bin again. I only kept reading it to see if they’d actually stoop to publishing a photograph of a certain MP drinking blood from a cute puppy on the front cover.

Apparently they still haven’t; yet.

I tried the online news sites, and found the various points of view expressed in the comments section more entertaining than the actual news. Things soon turned into a war of words between two anonymous tribes screaming, ‘Lefty Bias!’, or, ‘Right Wing Propaganda!’ no matter how un-political a story was. Alarmed, journalists began shutting down comments on their online articles.

So, I returned to the nightly ABC TV news and resumed throwing cushions at the tele while yelling strange phrases like “Oh, Buddha on a pooping elephant!” or, “James Dibble, come back!” as my startled family fled the lounge room.

Eventually I grew tired of being lonely each evening, so for the past month we’ve been watching ancient episodes of M.A.S.H. Even though it’s dripping with political bias and propaganda, their comical antics make us chuckle, and my outrage and frustration levels have dropped faster than a stunned pigeon, which is great news for my blood pressure; and family.