MysteryMan said:
...I miss the days when that network presented the news Jack Webb style, "just the facts"...
Were we getting "just the facts" prior to Walter Cronkite delivering his editorial questioning our continued involvement in the Vietnam War?
James Long said:
...A few years ago CNN ran a commercial portraying the morning news shows on the broadcast networks as people sitting on couches laughing over coffee. Now all the networks seem to spend more time "connecting" and less time reporting facts.
About two decades ago, one Boston TV station decided that the local evening news programs had already gone too far with the blow-dried, happy talk reporters and so they hired two respected, former local new anchors John Henning and Jack Hynes to establish a Huntley-Brinkley type, serious news alternative. They had some cute commercials where Henning and Hynes were applying for various jobs and kept getting turned down because they couldn't sing or dance. The tag line of the commercial was: "Henning and Hynes. All the news without the song and dance." Guess what? They flopped. We want the song and dance.
Davenlr said:
Check out BBC World News, and AlJazeera/English. Both have their "Opinion" Segmented shows, but their actual news broadcasts are presented about as opinion free, and "just the facts" as I have found.
I've noticed that Aljazerra, Russia Today and France 24 all now use British newsreaders, probably so that we will lower our guards since we trust the British. I watch all three more than I watch any domestic network news, because of the lack of fluff. I don't think I have seen a Lindsay Lohan story on any of them, nor have I seen the same worn out clips of that chick that went missing in Aruba. How many hundred times have we seen her on the cable "news" channels, turning the wrong way when she was marching with the flag?
Aljazerra's coverage of national disasters is exceptional, but they take a lot of pot shots at the US when covering news items pertaining to international conflicts. Just a few weeks ago, when a new development in the story of the South Korean ship that was sunk by an explosion was being reported, Aljazerra's designated expert repeated the claim that it could have been sunk by a mine (possible, I suppose), and that since the mine couldn't be identified, "...it could even have been a United States mine". He uttered that last sentence very softly, as any respectful and honorable Brit would.
Cholly said:
...CNN ...(has) gone downhill since the early days of the Iraq war. Many of their good reporters are gone. Every now and then, they do a good job of reporting (Katrina, Haiti, Nashville), but on a day to day basis quality of reporting has suffered. Unfortunately, all the cable and broadcast networks seem to have gone for young, attractive people who are adept at reading a Teleprompter. There are a few reporters on NBC, ABC and CBS who do a good job of presenting the facts and actually go out in the field.
Every news anchor in every studio has to rely on a Teleprompter to keep the show synchronized, just like everyone from the golden age of Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, and Harry Reasoner and Howard K Smith relied on the typed scripts they were reading. Shep Smith (the guy that looks like James McArthur) hosts Fox New's only real news show. It is nearly all teleprompter, and very straight, and it gets the lowest ratings of any Fox News show from 3:00 and through 11:00 AM.
The reduction in staff field reporting is for economic reasons. All networks close foreigh bureau after foreign bureau because the cost of staffing them just so that they can be in place for a breaking story or two a year isn't worth it.
Remember when Fox News established "Camp Geraldo"? I would have been just as happy to have been spared those self aggrandizing performances. "Here I am, Geraldo Rivera, within miles of the actual fighting". As I recall, he was actually more than 100 miles from the fighting he was reporting on that day,
Earlier this year, I heard one of the originators of Fox News say that early on, they concluded that CNN was making a mistake by trying to be a straight news station, devoid of personalities, and so they deliberately set out to hire and develop appealing on-air personalities. Their ratings show that doing so works.
...ever since NBCU took over the Weather Channel, it has become the Weather Entertainment Channel.
Nick said:
Perhaps more appropriate, "Weather Entertainment Television, or WET. :sure:
A few months ago, I read that the Weather Channel was feuding with one of the cable giants because its present content does not serve the cable company as well as they believe that an all weather channel would serve it, and that because of that, the did not feel that the Weather Channel, as presently constituted, was worth the price they were paying for it or the favored channel line-up placements they were giving it.
jadebox said:
...Personally, I wish CNN would bring back Headline News. It was nice to be able to tune it and get a brief overview of the day's news. Now, you tune into "HLN" to see news and instead yourself watching some "Entertainment Tonight" type of crap or, worse, that Nancy Grace character
Not a chance Headline News's entertainment magazine type shows attract about one-and-a-half times the audience that their, "Around the World in 30 Minutes" format did, and the slimey evening shows can more than double the audiences of their predecessors if there is a particularly scandalous story unfolding.