(S)'NEWS and X-treme News--How We Don't Keep Ourselves Informed on Lovely Erde

Enervating and Monotonous Drone of Mild Troubles Cures Insomnia

Newspapers on Erde flourish as all the spongy junk news is now being funneled to viewers through new N.O.W. news services--(S)'NEWS (Somnabulant News Agency) for the sleep deprived, and X-treme News for folks who enjoy listening to the dulcet rumble of Armageddon as they do their laundry or ironing. The (S)NEWS network broadcasts non-stop and monotone-delivered reports of global pseudo-news filler such as live coverage of children temporarily trapped in wells and in no real danger, stories of people recovering from minor surgery, tornadoes that passed through beet fields, political speeches, fender-benders in foreign lands, first-person recollections about the difficulties of growing up with big feet, and moving picture/royalty actor and actress dating capers. X-treme News offers a veritable Old Uncle Nicklesday's parade of nightmarish speculation: what might happen if a Bat Wiggle pandemic ever spreads about, worst case scenario if Persia grows a Sunbomb, the horrors that will be ours if Erde spins out of control and plunges into Sol because of uncontrolled Global Warping , how everything will go to heck if autistic-horrorists succeed in shutting down the banana-oil pipes and bringing the "Bull" to a complete halt, and other terrifyingly entertaining, largely theoretical, and not immediately pressing issues. (S)NEWS and X-treme News are expected to supplant the increasingly indistinguishable afternoon melodramas and National Public Wireless's news and commentary program, Dull Things Reconsidered, which at any rate may be merged with the Empire's largest circulation humor paper, The National Interrogator, according to recent rumor. Commenting on that allegation, outraged NPW newsanchor Sandor Seagoon insisted, "There is absolutely no common ground between, say, irresponsible and sensationalist reportage of End Times, aliens in government, and two-headed calves, and our award-winning stories about the upcoming environmental catastrophe of global warping, and the plight of migrant, two-headed, radioactive, crack babies in prison--heck, it's the difference between common diner coffee and a mocha latte cappuccino!"