My father used to make fun of me for saying that I could hear the TV on even if it was muted, or that I could hear the furnace ‘scream’ before it came on.
One year, I got as a gift for Christmas, a handheld recorder and a fancy microphone from my stepfather a university music professor And that recorder could actually record the sound which he was able to show me on the computer.
That was like 25 years ago, I’ve been working with computers ever since, and now I am familiar with many many many devices that make high pitch whines.
Some of the largest protests the world and specifically America had ever seen took place during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars drawing incredible numbers of people all across the country to protest. Our government got violent putting down a lot of those protests and The News largely just didn’t report it.
It’s just harder to hide shit now, but a lot of people seem to discount how much power the TV had over what people thought was going on outside.