At various points of the day on Tuesday, I took to channel surfing the various coverages of President Gerald Ford's State Funeral in Washington, DC. At some point, the difference between the coverage on CNN and C-SPAN suddenly struck me. For those of you outside the US, C-SPAN is a channel which pretty much focuses on displaying coverage of the US Congress and other government related events. CNN is CNN.

The commentary on CNN almost never stopped. It was like the constant color commentary you get watching a sporting event. Half the time, I wished they would be quiet. You couldn't hear yourself think and some of the drivel was meaningless. I can see President Carter is talking to Secretary of State Rice. I don't care what you think they are talking about. And even if I did, was that really relevant to the event at hand?

Whereas with C-SPAN, there was no commentary, save for the occasional closed-caption item that went by indicating that music was playing (I usually watch TV with closed-captioning turned on since I suffer from a mild hearing loss). Allowed for total reflection and appreciation for the solemnity of the event.

More is not always better.