6 Comments Add your own

• 1. Dan Riley  |  August 2nd, 2006 at 8:51 pm

  OK, so here’s just one more example of the problem:

  Paula Zahn (she’s supposed to be the bastion of
  credible news reporters right…)
  At the end of her program tonight she interviews a
  Jewish representative of some organization about
  the Mel Gibson situation who says to Paula…”so what ! The guy was drunk. He’s not a politician, he’s not a statesmen, he’s not making a public statement saying this is what he believes. We don’t care about it. Let’s leave the guy alone.” or words to that effect.
  But Paula argues with the guy,
  saying but he’s a Celeb and Celebs carry weight
  and let me read you this quote, etc. etc.
  I mean, Geez Louise.
  Why did she interview the guy? Was it to get his
  perspective as a Jewish person? Apparently not.
  She just wanted to try to convince him he really
  should think this was a big deal. She wanted to argue.

  My prediction is people will eventually get tired of all the flash and arguing and lack of substance offered
  by the majority of today’s TV news. They will realize
  it’s all a waste of their time. Local news is worse by far at not providing much that local residents can use to understand their community and their leaders and how to improve their town and hold their elected
  officials accountable to the people. This, after all,
  is why we have freedom of the press in this country in the first place.

  People will say, if this is what TV news has to offer, I’ll get my news some other way. I think this change has already started. Ask any 25 to 35 year old if they watch local TV news on a regular basis? See if even 10% of them answer yes. Even me, who worked in TV news
  since the early 70s has had it. I can’t watch local news.
  Nobody stands up for anything anymore.
  All the crap is presented like it’s ok.
  There is no followup when some local government
  official says something that is false or misleading.
  No one rebuts. The reason…..no time to do it.
  Amazingly, in a 60 minute newscast,
  there are only 25 minutes of news. The rest is
  commercials and bumps and promos.
  What a joke.

  Some smart person will start up a news organization
  that provides usable, credible news coverage and
  slowly it will get readers and viewers. This is no
  different than any other commodity that people consume.
  First, someone makes something good.
  Then everyone copies it very badly.
  Then nobody likes the product anymore.
  Then while no one is paying attention,
  someone comes along and makes it better again.

  It will happen. It might take a while though.
  Let’s see what happens.
  Dan

• 2. Alyssa  |  August 3rd, 2006 at 7:35 am

  I have one friend who once told me (as we watched NBC Nightly News recently) that he felt NBC was trying to persuade him of a point of view, implying a serious bias (like that often attributed to FoxNews).

  “Ask any 25 to 35 year old if they watch local TV news on a regular basis?” That same friend also told me that he’s never watched local news, except with me. He doesn’t even browse the local paper online. Yet he reads the online version of the daily newspaper of the city he grew up in.

• 3. Notes from a Teacher: Mar&hellip  |  August 3rd, 2006 at 9:12 am

  [...] TV news credibility still slipping. Deciding how to report and deliver the results may not be the biggest challenge media faces. [...]

• 4. Ashtanga Poster  |  October 10th, 2006 at 9:14 am

  Good observation, your ideas are right on.

• 5. df  |  January 9th, 2007 at 5:40 pm

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• 6. trmadol  |  January 25th, 2007 at 8:49 am

  I always have terrible trouble with comment-related plugins that require me to put some line in the comment loop; I can never seem to find the right spot. Can anyone tell me where I should put the php line in my comments loop? I haven not modified anything much, and I would be very grateful. Thanks!

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