Donaldson: Network News Dead

Broadcsting & Cable ^ | April 19, 2005 | Bill McConnell

[ZULU]

"I think it's dead. Sorry,"

I'm not. Requiescat in pace.

[mombonn]

Requiescat in pace.

LOL, RIP was the first phrase that popped into my mind when I read the headline!

[Lady Jag]

Network news was losing money in the 70s and never recovered - in my experience as a media buyer in Boston in the '70s and '80s, obviously before cable.

It could have been a loser in the 60's as well, I don't know, but in my term of media expertise, it went steadily downhill and UHF comedies were getting larger audiences in the same time slots, reflecting the sorts of people who watched at that hour.

[Fido969]

Well, given choices, the people have gone elsewhere.

[GretchenM]

The three also agreed ... that Internet bloggers have had a generally positive impact on news because mainstream reporters are forced to better verify their information and pare opinions out of their work or face he wrath of scrutinizing critics.

At least they got that news story right.

I guess this is their way of saying, Our editors have left us without supervision for way toooo long.

[rdcorso]

Network news might be dead but that thing on Sam's head sure isn't.

[KC_Conspirator]

It was on the actual network. I believe the History Channel ran an extra special later that evening. That was an excellent Jennings special.

[hflynn]

Debunked the conspiracy. ROTFL.

Jennings produces a show which attempted to use a computer simulation to conclusively prove what the Warren Commission Report said happened 40 years prior. It was a attempt to once again whitewash The Warren Commission single bullet theory and the greatest examples of computerized journalism GIGO I've ever seen.

[righttackle44]

"But why did that have to be on the History Channel? Why can't the networks have the nuts to do something like that??"

There was a day when that might have happened.

However, today, the networks are fighting mightily
only for young adults and teenagers.

Their nuts only extend to those folks, most of whom
consider anyone interested in 1963 as un-cool.

The networks present few entertainment and information options: to go beyond fart and belch jokes, breast jokes, cockroach milkshakes, butt-shows, vomit jokes, true crime and kidnapping shows is something the networks don't have the courage to do.

Even Bill "Tinfoil Hats and shrill rants" Moyers has to stay on PBS.

[randog]

Gee Sam, here's an idea: how about you and all the other journalistic hacks out there are subject to the same laws as everyone else?

No kidding. If Sam et.al. want blanket immunity then they can join the priesthood.

[Ben Hecks]

Network news might be dead but that thing on Sam's head sure isn't.

LOL!

[processing please hold]

In my first reading the headline, I thought Donaldson had died.

[ken21]

amen.

liberals puked all over americans during the vietnam war, and since.

good riddance.

[reagan_fanatic]

Network news might be dead but that thing on Sam's head sure isn't.

It doesn't help your credibility when you appear in front of millions of viewers wearing a dead marmoset on your head.

Wave bye-bye to the MSM, y'all, and say hello to FR.

[chainsaw]

Maybe if they had reported news instead of their liberal point of view the competition would have been relegated to obscurity.

Bingo, you have it correct. But don't tell the MSM, they will never figure it out before they go belly up. All I want are the ture facts - I can make up my own mind. Thank God for the internet.

[Hildy]

Check out what Michael Crichton said in a speech before the National Press Club in 1993! I remember it like it was yesterday.

National Press Club, 1993

[FormerACLUmember]

NOT DEAD ENOUGH!

The day the democrat party press release agencies, oops I meant network news, actually is annihilated will be a day of great joy.

[FormerACLUmember]

Network new staff preparing "news":

[Right Wing Assault]

I see Peter, Dan, and Walter Cronkite!