By Bill Dodds | Catholic News Service

One of my earliest memories of my late father-in-law is his watching the national news during weeknight family dinners. Since he watched, we all watched. A complete broadcast on one channel and then, switching to a different station, a complete broadcast on another.

It seemed a little strange to me. Hadn't we pretty much seen everything in the first one? But he was, you know, really "old" at age 58, and I loved his daughter. Showing great wisdom for a 20-year-old, I kept my mouth shut.

Given a choice, and without his knowledge, I would have preferred a "Twilight Zone" rerun. Or, in a pinch, even a "Gilligan's Island."

It would be eight years before CNN became the first 24-hour cable news channel station and more than a decade after that, with the first Persian Gulf War in 1991, that it gained a large number of viewers.

Fast forward some 20-plus years -- and, my, how those years did fast forward -- and ... you know the story. Networks, local stations, newspapers, cable, satellite, Internet, cellphone ... countless options all day and all night.

And that increased competition has led to "entertainment" (shock value) trumping news that's truly valuable. News that's important. Valuable and important can have a tough time competing with racy or lurid because we humans love gossip. The junk food of the news world.

With that in mind, these are a few points to consider:

-- I took a step away from the news last year after my wife died of uterine cancer. I didn't have the physical or emotional energy for it. Over time, I discovered I could stay informed by reading through story headlines on local television websites. I could skip whatever I wanted to.

And I could avoid the dramatic music, overblown artwork and ominous tones of the news anchor. It seems that fear sells, and more news outlets are relying on it in so many ways.

-- Even before this, I stopped viewing the video clips and listening to the audio files that brought bad news, horrifying news, to life. Sad news. Deeply disturbing news.

In recent months, that has included videos and photographs of beheadings. I don't want to see them because I can't "unsee" them. In the same way, I don't listen to the 911 calls from recent tragedies because I can't "unhear" them. I don't need to see or hear those to know what happened. They're presented not to further inform me but to increase viewership, which translates into higher ad rates, which means greater profit for a corporation.

-- It can be easy to think there's nothing we can do about all that happening, but that's not true. We can always pray for those people and those situations. Prayer always makes a difference.

-- And there can be the sense that things are getting worse. That may be true. What I know is true is that the immediacy, repetition and global scope of the news can make it seem things are worse. So can the ever-increasing news hole that constantly has to be replenished.

These days, there's just too much for one person to absorb. Even an old news junkie like my father-in-law couldn't do it.