Last Sunday afternoon, I was propped before my TV set – hand on the remote – prepared to alternate between the Lakers - Houston NBA playoff game and the Yankee - Minnesota baseball encounter.

Tip-off was moments away and a phone call alerted me that Obama’s Notre Dame speech was going live. I surfed and found the talking heads at CNN and Fox. I stayed with CNN. Sports would have to wait for the evening wrap-ups. CNN was offering a predictable debate of the camera focused on the incoming graduates in the commencement hall, South Bend. Various professorial types were talking and there was a glimpse of the valedictorian.

But CNN – before the President was to speak – was more interested in the polarizing opinions about abortion. Cable TV is convinced that the only way to hold their audience is for heads screaming at us, assuming opinions that are diametrically opposed. The cameras also went outside the hall, locating protestors, mostly non-students who had invaded the college town…a roundup of the usual suspects, media whores who knew the tricks to gain 15 seconds of national viewing. Not folks you would like to hang with. And the TV news stations always accommodate the most extreme, if often inarticulate, advocates on either side of an issue.

I briefly switched to Fox News and the pro-egg voices were combat ready. The two major cable news networks were setting the stage for an acrimonious graduation ceremony.

And the President of the United States was introduced to the graduating seniors. He was calm, self-assured and clear. He offered sound counsel to the young men and women at Notre Dame who were entering a post-collegiate life amidst economic uncertainty. Then he approached the subject of life and a woman’s right to choose.

It was a healing speech…vintage Obama…suggesting that people with different perspectives on a subject could find common ground. He called for creating a society in which fewer women would opt for an abortion, for widening the adoption pool and providing health care for expectant mothers. It was not a view that would satisfy most pro-egg people…but he was creating room for the less volatile to participate in the dialogue. He cautioned the students about gaining their information exclusively from cable news.

The audience – and there were thousands filling the hall in addition to the graduating body – were warmly, even enthusiastically receptive and cheered the President continuously during his oration. There were two single cases of shouting out by protestors whose words could not be understood and who were peacefully escorted away by security guards. It was like a pimple on an elephant and hardly a factor in this historic speech. If you only watched Obama talk on TV, you would have witnessed a beautiful and profound presentation with humor and wisdom, greeted with continued applause from the appreciative throng.

The moment President Obama concluded his speech we were thrust back into the dark world of cable news. It’s a Dick Cheney world...suspicious and grim. The CNN anchor concentrated on the two men exiled and the cameras swirled to hysterical placard holders off campus.

I wanted to leave the world of CNN and in my desperation found myself in the world of Fox TV whose team of talking heads, including GOP chair Michael Steele, were all ignoring the efforts of the President to find common ground. They were combative and revealing a predictable and theatrical anger.

The afternoon was a textbook example of media creating their own event…as though the President of the United States accepting honors from a prestigious university and not sidestepping the thorny issue of a woman’s right to choose wasn’t sufficient.

The commentaries on Fox and CNN had little to do with the news of the day: the President speech or his effort to calmly lead the nation by involving us and informing us about a provocative and prickly issue.

Cable news is determined to divide us; sell fear, keep us tuned and they can sell more drugs like Viagra or that male enhancement pill that keeps the comics alert.

I have found a solution for me. I will watch the hard news and then silence the lineup of heads. I don’t understand CNN charts or fascination with electronic wizardry; nor do I learn anything from the constantly discontented array of Fox kvetches.

Last Sunday crystallized it for me. To convince myself, later that evening I checked the channels again. Learned a great deal about Miss California and a missing child in a Midwestern mall; heard of several ghoulish crimes and saw endless shots and interviews with screaming protestors in and around Notre Dame. The President’s speech, which moved, inspired and informed me, was a sound bit – not worth the attention of Fox’s Roger Ailes and his CNN counterpart.

At a time when we are being told that newspapers are dinosaurs and that their days are numbered, I am chilled by what we are getting in their place. There was a cartoon in the New Yorker…a woman in front of a roomful of TV monitors and computers laments “If this is the information age, why doesn’t anyone know anything?”

I don’t assume that the old ways are always the best, but I also recognize that change is not necessarily progress. How we receive our information is vital in sustaining our democracy. In that arena, it is as perilous as the economy…with no bailout in sight!

We deserve better.

I’m David Rothenberg…out on a limb!