More cable news bashing…
Pierre Atlas pens an Op-Ed in the Indianapolis Star that decries the sensationalistic bent American cable news takes…
Turn the channel to CNN, Fox News or MSNBC and if the story isn’t about Anna Nicole, it’s about Britney Spears shaving her head.
Steve Adubato, media analyst for MSNBC, observed in his Feb. 14 online column that “it’s a lot easier and more fun to cover celebrity-based, salacious stories than to examine sobering stuff like social security, health care, race relations or what the best approach is in getting out of Iraq.”
Deliberately or not, the mainstream mass media, especially broadcast and cable TV are far more likely to provide mind-numbing distraction rather than information that would be useful to an active and responsible citizenry. In Roman times, it was called “bread and circuses.” Twenty years ago, political scientist Murray Edelman called it “Constructing the Political Spectacle.” This isn’t new; it’s just gotten worse.
It’s not about what’s easier to cover. It’s about getting good ratings without losing integrity and journalistic principles. If it was all about ratings and ease, FNC would put Law and Order, or Buffy, or Seinfeld on at 8pm instead of O’Reilly.
Comment by erljr — March 2, 2007 @ 11:36 am
I hate when reporters bash cable news. I say worry about your own jobs and lower newspaper sales. Cable news has grown leaps and bounds. As you grow you go thru changes, you make mistakes (hopefully learn from them) you try new things and some things are right and some are wrong but you move forward. It’s working and more and more people are coming to cable news. And think about….his reporting/story is on how cable news is reporting stories???
Comment by Noelle — March 2, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
Did anyone notice how the ratings ballooned the week of Anna Nicole Smith’s death, especially CNNs, which was practically doing wall to wall coverage? To me, it was sad that something like this is what it takes to get many people to tune into cable news. I am just the opposite in that I was searching for any station that kept it in perspective.
Comment by Mike — March 2, 2007 @ 1:45 pm
Mike - CNN was the only cable news net that DIDN’T do wall to wall.
Comment by erljr — March 2, 2007 @ 1:50 pm
Sorry, erljr, but thats not what I noticed, although I admit I didn’t watch every minute of every network. Olbermann certainly didn’t, but Scarborough pretty much did. It seemed to me that every time I tuned in to CNN, there it was.
Comment by Mike — March 2, 2007 @ 2:16 pm
Number one hit the nail on the head: It’s all about ratings, PERIOD! FNC doesn’t care about integrity, and MSNBC is quickly following. Look at their show lineups. CNN wants to do hard news all the time but has yet made up its mind to do so. FNC and MSNBC covered ANS wall to wall and it paid off in the numbers. CNN chose not too and well…the numbers show the result. At least CNN execs can take pride in giving tv NEWS viewers a choice.
Comment by Me — March 2, 2007 @ 4:07 pm
Here ya go, Mike:
http://insidecable.blogsome.com/2007/02/26/more-smith-coverage/
http://insidecable.blogsome.com/2007/02/20/more-anna-nicole-court-hysterics/
Also, it appears Me(#6) saw what I saw:
“FNC and MSNBC covered ANS wall to wall and it paid off in the numbers. CNN chose not too and well…the numbers show the result.”
And Me(#6) - I did not say it was all about ratings period. I said it’s all about getting ratings without losing integrity. Sorry I had to turn the spin cycle off.
Comment by erljr — March 2, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
http://insidecable.blogsome.com/2007/02/20/more-anna-nicole-court-hysterics/
Also, it appears Me(#6) saw what I saw:
“FNC and MSNBC covered ANS wall to wall and it paid off in the numbers. CNN chose not too and well…the numbers show the result.”
And Me(#6) - I did not say it was all about ratings period. I said it’s all about getting ratings without losing integrity. Sorry I had to turn the spin cycle off.
Comment by erljr — March 2, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
Here’s another Mike:
http://insidecable.blogsome.com/2007/02/26/more-smith-coverage/
Comment by erljr — March 2, 2007 @ 6:02 pm
Cable news deserves the criticism. Who was the Fox News idiot that said Anderson Cooper was being high-and-mighty by not commenting on Anna Nicole? Cooper’s right (even though he did cover the story for a while). We expect Fox (the #1 name in cable news), CNN (the most reliable news source), and MSNBC (THE network about politics) to cover hard news.
I understand some coverage, but wall-to-wall for days on end is mind-numbing. If we wanted to view this stuff, we’d turn it to “E” or channels like that, that specializes in celebrity news. It’s not too much to ask that our serious news channels provide exactly that - serious news.
Comment by The Voice of Reason — March 3, 2007 @ 11:52 am
In all respects, the sad point of cable news is that the original use, such as the early years of CNN, was that they could provide hour to hour coverage of news stories, such as the first Gulf War, providing coverage the regular networks can’t do since they have entertainment programming.
At this point, the whole spectrum of cable news is predominately covering nothing less than sudo-journalistic stories that largely have no national standing and no national effects. Look at Hollaway, look at the Bus Accident in Atlanta, look at Britney, Paris, and the stars adopting babies from foreign countries! How, in any way or form, does this actually effect the average person from day to day?! I would rather hear about what’s happening in Africa, what’s happening in Iraq, what problems our nation has, what really is important instead of time filler! Sure, I like a little soft news in my newscasts, but really, if anything, I would love to have a news broadcast that just covered real news, but I know that won’t happen as long as ratings are what matter.
Comment by Chris — March 3, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
such as the early years of CNN, was that they could provide hour to hour coverage of news stories,
Chris: With such a statement, it is obvious you don’r remember or likely weren’t even alive during the early days of CNN.
For starters, I remember late night entertainment gab fests hosted by Mike Douglas and Lee Leonard and for years the top CNN weekend show was “CNN Style With Elsa Klensch” which basically featured models on runways.
Yeah, that was the “original use” of CNN: hard news!
Comment by Ira — March 3, 2007 @ 2:37 pm