7 O'Clock News/Silent Night Lyrics

Lyric discussion by DixieJ 

Cover art for 7 O'Clock News/Silent Night lyrics by Simon and Garfunkel

The "news broadcast" is actually a collection of the some of the headlines of the times read together as if they were a single news announcement. I think the song is primarily anti-war, but it's also just a sad commentary on the chaos of the time.

Additionally, considering the fact that the news wasn't actual news but a selection of stories put together by the recording studio: it makes sense that the underlying message might be the necessity of standing up for yourself and for what's right.

Standing up against the Vietnam war might get you blacklisted by HUAC, but it's the "greatest single weapon" working to end the war.

Speck, alone, killed nine nurses by strangling them with their own bedsheets, and none of them fought back.

etc.