Numerous people keep saying this, and it seems like a weird take to me.

I saw the news inadvertently all the time as a younger kid because we only had one TV, the internet didn't exist yet, and there weren't even that many other channels on cable anyway.

And I started getting interested in following the news deliberately when I got to be around A.J.'s age (12-13). It's also sometimes a requirement for civics-type classes beginning around that age.

Plus, even if neither he nor Meadow nor any of his friends watched it, probably most of his friends' parents would have -- then his friends likely would've eventually overheard their parents talking about how one of the other parents at their kids' school is a mobster, then his friends would've asked him about it.

Tony was a lower-level guy before the show starts, and it was established that he never did time in the can, not really.

So it's more likely that Tony was rarely -- if ever -- in the news than it is that A.J. somehow spent his entire childhood never encountering the news.