Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for February 27, 2024

I think Calvin grew up to be a social media influencer.

In the future, Calvin continues to follow via Internet.

I think Calvin is only reading the news from the newspaper because of the charts

I should go back to TV news so I can get all my news in 30 minutes. I have a problem with local news. If they say “Coming up in the next half hour”, I will never watch them again, because I don’t want to watch more than 30 minutes of local news.

Must be USA Today.

Social media

KISS the secret sauce

People have wondered why I’ve sometimes called Bill Watterson “Sam”.

I’m afraid I may have mistaken him for the actor who starred in LAW & ORDER.

Sorry, Bill.

And just think, in the 80s most “journalists” could spell!

No chart, I guess this strip is a fluff piece.

Calvin should see the news today. Not too much news included in the news these days.

Thirty years on, not a lot’s changed, really

Now that Calven is about 38, the new hasn’t changed a bit.

Common taters.

Some things never change. The Newspapers remain mere narrative machines….

And that’s just the regular news… today, we have “entertainment news”, “sports news”, etc…

Just think: that was 30 years ago, and it’s gotten so much worse since then.

Yep, Cal, and all that medical advice. Something to ‘tell your doctor.’ And guarantee you’ll wish you hadn’t.

A few years ago I saw a television news item about an automobile accident that closed an intersection in the afternoon rush hour in a fairly small community. The reporter reported, and the anchor goaded him to speculate, but the reporter stuck to the facts. It was so unusual I still remember it.

I may be overthinking it, but shouldn’t it be “it’s got a chart next to the article.”?

Calvin is looking at a newspaper, but the same sarcastic comments can be applied to broadcast news. That’s why I never watch it.

Probably an in-depth soap opera.

Not a bad definition of today’s politics, Calvin.

Last Panel: That about sums it up.

I just call everybody “Chester”. . . .

I get my news from the internet news services. I can pick from the various news services to get information on the same event. I could not do that with a newspaper, and I’d have to switch channels and hope to catch the same story on TV.

Lately I’ve been turning to AI and asking questions like “Give me the exact wording of judge so-and-so ruling on such-and-such a case.” News services usually summarize and if the quote the ruling at all, it’s only parts of it. So the AI goes out to some obscure law library to look it up.

I trust but verify. I rarely take a single news source as gospel.

A person that engages his brain, analyzes information and considers the news story thoughtfully.

NPR’s worse nightmare…

The problem with the media is that it gives us exactly what we want.

I used to read the WAPO in the late ’60s to early ’70s when it was more factual and indepth. Now, it would only make a great liner for the bird cage. Even the local newspaper has diminished in quality and size as it slowly creeps to oblivion. Definitely not the future I thought it would be.

Considering the Copywrite date is 1994, it’s clear that little has changed in the intervening thirty years.

Don’t forget the made up terminology from time to time

Calvin does well for going to a segregated school.

(And yes, there are no children of color in Miss Wormwood’s class).

More prescience from C&H…

Sometimes I have a hard time remembering this strip is thirty years old. I like to think these depressing developments it was already calling out back then are recent developments and will prove to be passing aberrations. Guess not.

A comic from 1994 that is still relevant today, maybe more so.

Thirty years old and still relevant.

Love it. Article beside the chart. Sometimes they don’t even bother to put a legend on the chart.

I wonder what Sam thinks about Twitter.

Why bother with an accurate and in depth explanation, when you can make your point with a vague and deliberately misleading graph.

Calvin was way ahead of the curve when it came to the MSM…

And this was all 30 years ago

Must be USA Decay he’s reading.

We thought it was bad back then, it pales in comparison to today. Americans (using a generalized voice) tend to just look at headlines when they read news online, and rarely sit through the evening news.

I feel like the media could learn a thing or two by reading a 30 year old Calvin and Hobbes cartoon.