news story?

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everything in solondz' films are perfectly placed and mean something. so, yes, it does mean something. my wild guess here is that it represents how the family tries to cut themselves off from the outside world. the livingstons are incredibly sheltered in this fantasy-world suburb lifestyle they hide within. there are a few references to it in the film.

for instance, when the mother is trying to solicit money on the phone for her fundraiser, we see the housekeeper struggling to keep their "dirty lives" a secret by scrubbing away at the floor. the mother says something to the effect that charity begins at home, yet we see this older woman on her hands and knees cleaning for them, and later hear about her son who was executed. do they even notice rosa's work? do they even appreciate how hard she works for them? mikey didn't even know she had a family-- do you think anyone else in the family knew this too? if charity and kindness begins in the home, how come they don't even know anything about their own housekeeper who lives with them? and if you live by the idea that the father was NOT hypnotized by mikey and was just playing along, why did he fire rosa anyway? from what we see in the film, she does good work. makes great meals... cleans very hard... is patient with mikey's innocent-- yet rude-- comments. maybe he finds out she had a son who was a murderer and rapist from mikey? maybe that causes him to fire her-- which goes back to your question of turning off the news. they rather get rid of a "problem" then deal with it. so, there are many possibilities here of why rosa was really fired. (or he was telling the truth and her work really was becoming awful... who knows!)

also when the family was eating dinner one night and scooby brings up a thought about hitler-- the father didn't even want to open his mind to any ideas that might offend him or cause his family to think differently. it was just an honest, fleeting idea scooby tried to convey, but he was punished for it. why? because in the livingston house, it's all about keep up appearances and maintaining the status quo. you don't go against the grain. you don't cause any noise. you take the SAT's. you eat meat. if you're a boy, you like girls. you follow in your father's footsteps. you don't dream. etc. any disruption would mean breaking down the walls they so carefully tried to build up to protect them from the real world-- the ugly world going on all around them. remember how scooby just left the car running and unlocked and then came back-- shocked-- not to find it? he probably didn't even know that someone taking advantage of him was possible, because in his world, no one would do such a thing (and he's going to be the next conan o'brien by doing nothing... see the thinking pattern here?).

so, when we go back to your original question, can you see why they turned off the news? i really have to go back and listen carefully-- if it was in their own hometown it would make even more sense why they turned it off. but i forget. anyway, so yeah... they turn it off because they just want to live in their lil' perfect world, and not really care what's going on around them. they just care about looking the part, and living it.

Hollywood films = how we want the world to be.
Independent films = how the world really is.