It's amazing to me how the many news channels are beginning to take on the guise of fast food restaurants.

With each program trying to take a different angle on an issue, it's as though they're trying to sell you their version of what's going on. Even though they're all selling hamburgers, one network's burger is flame-broiled while the other's is fried.

Each week, there's a different special on the menu. There's the daily special of war in Iraq with a side of Palestinian/Israeli conflict. In recent times, the news groups have received a large shipment of exploding space shuttle, but after about a week they ran out as the public lost interest.

In a way, the space shuttle Columbia tragedy fared a similar fate in the news as McDonalds' Beef Wennington did. When Bill Wennington's three-point streak with the Chicago Bulls fizzled out shortly after he gained popularity, so did public interest in the novelty burger.

Terrorism in the news bears a certain similarity to the McRib. Although you can't find it anywhere when you want to, it'll be out for a limited time when you least expect it. After awhile you get used to it and begin to wish the incessant news coverage would just go away, much like the heartburn that comes with the McRib.

One might argue that there in fact is no similarity between fast food establishments and network news organizations. Some might say that food and news have nothing in common. To a degree, this is correct, but when it all comes down to the bottom line, they are all too similar. Although both claim to serve a common good and serve the public, there are two key factors that remain unchanged.

The first factor is that certain specialists and doctors are now saying that not only fast food, but also violent coverage in the media, has something to do with derelict behavior in our youth. Fast food establishments are being blamed for clogging up our children's arteries.

The media is being blamed for corrupting our children's minds with depiction of death and destruction in the news, and grossly sexual behavior on prime time TV. Although these points can be disputed, there does remain a certain correlation that interest groups gladly expose.

The second factor is that fast food and news groups are out to make their owners rich. If there were no money involved, media moguls would not go out of their way to establish networks and news organizations just to be nice. The almighty dollar is the bottom line. And you can rest assured that people working fast food wouldn't slave over a hot grill, or be knee-deep in the "Colonel's secret recipe," for nothing. In George Washington we trust.