Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded.
ping
yeah, right!
after they elect more democraps.
some “dead media”.
We're not winning this game, no matter how often we tell ourselves we are.
They should cancel the network news programs which are not needed anymore and instead put repeats of Friends, Cheers, or some other sitcom that will end up making them more money.
Competing With the Internet
In war and in peace, television news has developed a highly structured approach to the way stories are told and, for that matter, in deciding which stories are told. The emergence of the Internet has created a new culture, and television news, fearful of becoming an anachronism, has rushed to be part of the process. At first blush, this makes sense, since the computer user and the television watcher have similar experiences: both look at electronic screens and both are exposed to two potent phenomena—instantaneity and limitlessness.
But the differences between the computer and the television are rarely examined. Using a computer is an “active” experience, since the user controls what is flashed on the screen, what length of time it remains there, and what comes next. Watching television is fundamentally a “passive” experience, assuming that the average viewer would prefer not to constantly switch among three or more news programs. The viewer cannot shape or control the experience without resorting to the “change channel” or on/off button.
Paradoxically, television is trying to remain relevant by appropriating the techniques of the computer, while ignoring its unique qualities. In so doing, television news is delegitimizing itself. It deepens the problem by insisting that all stories must have an arc—a beginning, a middle, and an end that is clear and, if possible, have a touch of inevitability, as great stories often do.
The problem here lies in the difference between literature and journalism. Describing the requirements of drama, Chekhov famously observed that a gun seen on the mantle piece in Act I had better be fired in Act III. No such requirement applies in the real world; the gun sometimes goes off, sometimes not. In its natural and commendable desire to present the news in a dramatic form, television conflates simplification with clarification, and in doing so it refuses to acknowledge a self-evident truth, that complexity and confusion are often intrinsic to the story being told.
Driven by ever-tougher economic imperatives, seduced by the digital marvels at its disposal, motivated by an enshrined notion of what an audience wants to see, and fearful that nuance and ambiguity will drive that audience away, television news is at war with itself. What it tells is too simple; what it shows is too complicated. Television journalists have debated and agonized about these questions for a long time. I recall one newsroom discussion many years ago in which a colleague concluded, to universal agreement, “Look, you can’t look down on the American people.” But that is exactly what has come to pass.
Marc Kusnetz, a former NBC News producer, is a freelance journalist and a consultant to Human Rights First.
I look forward to the day when television, as we know it or in any other form, ceases to exist. It is one of the most pernicious influences in our society.
I never even think of watching the “network” news. I go to Fox immediately. I can’t stand the other smarmy faces and voices.