From my Cable HD channel
Posted on 08/11/2013 4:59:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
A lot has changed in the 12 years since I graduated college.
I’m no longer roofing for $8 an hour. I’ve gone from listening to talk radio all day to hosting a daily radio show and the national debt has climbed from less than $6 trillion to more than $16 trillion.
One thing that hasn’t changed is my love of news. Absorbing and discussing news was a hobby since I was a kid; now it’s a career. What used to annoy my parents and their friends now annoys anyone within the 50,000-watt range of WBAL from noon till 3 p.m. But the news business, particularly cable news, has changed so much in that time that I’m thinking I may need to start seeing other sources.
Newspapers are, for the most part, horrible. The Washington Post didn’t sell for the loose change in Jeff Bezos’s couch because it was raking in the dough. As far as news magazines go, it seems you can buy Newsweek these days simply by being willing to be associated with owning Newsweek.
Print going the way of the Dodo hasn’t destroyed journalism. It still happens. Mostly by accident, but it does happen. But to find it you have to read through the opinion and spin in a story. Mainstream news organizations are shifting their focus toward bloggers, most liberal, who are so wet behind the ears you’d think they just stepped out of the pool. They tend to embarrass themselves more often than your drunken uncle at an open-bar family wedding. But outlets once flush with credibility are willing to accept that because the bloggers work cheap, independently and produce a lot. Quantity over quality…with charts!
But some inexperienced kid plugging numbers into PowerPoint doesn’t really mean much if they don’t know what the numbers mean. A thesaurus to make small words big may change their sound, but it doesn’t change their meaning.
If you didn’t know better, you’d be inclined to believe the postulations of these puppies. That seems to be the point. The media today, in all its forms, seems designed more to not only preach to the choir, but to provide the gleefully ignorant just enough of a sense of being informed that they don’t stray from the plantation and learn what you don’t want them to know.
Media Matters, the progressive activist group masquerading as a non-profit charity, is the most brazen example of this. It panders to the lowest common denominator, the uninformed, under the guise of informing them of things said in the media. Its job is to “correct” the record one snippet, out-of-context quote or heavily edited video at a time, all so uninformed readers never have to venture out of the schoolyard of ignorance. It’s not that they watch so you don’t have to; it’s that they watch so you won’t.
But what they watch, what we all watch in the way of news, is becoming more and more unwatchable.
There was a time when I could keep cable news on in the background from the moment I got home from school till I went to bed and regularly be stopped by some new bit of news or interview with a newsmaker. But that day is done.
With the exception of Bret Baier’s Special Report and Sheppard Smith’s Fox Report on Fox and Jake Tapper’s The Lead on CNN, there’s nothing palatable for news junkies on cable news anymore. Sure, there are moments, but for the most part cable news has devolved into a discussion between show hosts and paid contributors about stories they are uninvolved in and uninformed about. Hearing the opinions of people who are only as informed as the last wire service story is less effective than reading the wire service story. Yet that’s what cable news has become.
I understand the use of contributors. You’re paying them, so you might as well use them. But there are times when you can turn on MSNBC and see a host interviewing another host, or a panel of hosts and contributors talking about stories from which they’re completely detached. It’s like overhearing a totally uninteresting conversation from the table next to you at a restaurant – one that inspires you to eat faster so you can leave.
Fox isn’t immune either. You can set your clock by which contributor is on the TV. You literally can know what day and time it is by the guest or segment on Fox News’ prime-time lineup. Grete Van Susteren is the most frequent exception, but the rest of the lineup is predictable.
I don’t understand why Roger Ailes, a man I completely respect, allowed this laziness to happen. Perhaps it stems from the complacency that comes with being on top by so much for so long. But it’s not compelling or interesting. As a former Senate press secretary, I can tell you that getting a Member of Congress, a newsmaker, to show up in front of a camera is as easy as drunkenly slipping on ice in a footrace. Greta does it regularly.
Yet the rest of their big shows, shows that dominate the ratings, are a mix of pre-taped interviews and discussions between disconnected parties. I understand pre-tapes. I do them when I have to; sometimes early is the only time a guest has. But my show isn’t Fox. And a pre-taped interview or entire show comes across like expired meat when, as happens in a Twitter world, things change and develop between the time of the taping and the airing. New developments unaddressed is the elephant in the room when the room is pre-recorded.
The four-day work week and “Special Edition” tapes specials aren’t special when they aren’t in the moment. A room full of contributors mixed with “usual suspect” guests doesn’t make up for the fact that no one can make a point when 20 people are talking over each other and it was recorded two days earlier. It’s easy to do, and it’s fun to do, but it’s neither to watch.
Print is dying – rightfully so. There are too many choices and an immediate need with which they simply cannot compete. Their complacency cost them credibility and trust. The Internet offers too many choices for their spin to convince anyone not already in their herd. Web-based outlets are competing with them, and beating them in many cases, both in speed and in quality of content. Cable news is heading down that path. It doesn’t have to.
Television is the most powerful medium humans have created. When news breaks, people turn to their televisions. They supplement it with the Internet, but the TV will always win. Unless the TV refuses to offer what makes TV special – real-time access to people who know (or should, depending on the news). They can intergrade the Web, and should, much better than they do. But it can’t replace a trusted person talking to an informed and/or involved one. All too often cable news is moving away from the informed and/or involved guest to the one on the payroll. Given that option, there’s very little difference between watching people talking or reading some kid’s blog on the website of a newspaper owned by a billionaire. Neither option is appealing.
Oh, cable news is still on? How quaint...
.....Sheppard Smith’s Fox Report on Fox ....
Excuse me?
I questioned that as well.
Check the numbers.
The author is correct. It’s Fox Report with Shepard Smith. You are thinking of Special Report with Bret Baier, which is one hour earlier.
The utter stupidity of that statement is extraordinary!
I must state that in Shep’s defense he does have the best eye make-up of any FOX talking head...
See my post in #6 and if you don’t believe it go to TV Guide.com put in your zip code, cable provider, time zone. (I am in the central time zone)
balderdash........ he must write and his mind shovels drivel
His vocabulary lacks the word from
I must say, I agree with this writer in assessment of cable news...and mainstream media TV news. It stinks!!! Oh....Fox News Channel will bury MSNBC & CNN. Both those cable news networks are on life support...not to mention they are braindead!!! But...FNC is no beauty either. Assessment, “Boring” for all of them, including the main TV networks!!!
IMHO....Obama is a failed POTUS. The cutting edge news is the sea change going on in American politics. With the slight exception of FNC, no one is highlighting the budding and seriously developing change. There is a new mantra afoot that will alter the Republican party forever, starting with primary season, 2014. Many RINOs will fall. Democrats will take horrible losses in both the Senate and House, unless a serious awakening occurs, inside the now “dead-in-the-water” Democrat party. The promised Obama “hope & change” never has occurred, simply because left-wing liberalism just does not work in the USA and Obama has proved not to be bright ar all!!!
And...if the the low informed voters continue on the present political path, our wonderful nation is doomed to both failure and a meaningless existance!!! time for TV News folks to liven up!!!
lol
From my Cable HD channel
I am almost old enough to be this writer’s grandmother, and had thought that my decision not to have the tv on all day long (as I did for years, after Fox news started), was because of my age — heard everything too many times — could predict what the ‘news’ conversations would be.
But if someone only 12 years out of college feels the same way, then it’s not me, it’s the product being sold to us as news.
I was appalled by how bad cable news had become during my hospital stay last year.
The only thing I really missed when I cut the cord was the news and they’ve gone and screwed that up. And “they” includes Fox.
You are exactly right. After 5 years that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave hasn't learned a thing, which makes him a failure. Getting the whole world to hate or laugh at us is not an accomplishment that should be desired.
I also find it amazing that certain Freepers are trying to ridicule the author reference to Shep Smith's Special report
The author is pointing out that many of the interviews in the shows are pre-produced on tape, the shows that air on Friday night get pre-recorded on Thursday.
OBAMA AND OTHER POLITICIANS REDUCE THE THREAT OF POSSIBLE CRITICISM BY DOING A NEWS CONFERENCE OR MAKING ANNOUNCEMENTS LATE ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON.
They do it to give people a day off and cut production costs, but it can also make for “more excitement” because it is edited to “look good”.
Heck, they used to do that in the days of Mike Wallace and “60 Minutes” so in a sense nothing has changed, just the volume of it.
Kirsten Powers doesn't bother me, but I mute any liberal Fox News contributors as soon as they open their mouth. I am just not interested in what thy have to say, which are mostly lies anyway
When Fox News refused to cover Obama Eligibility, and attacked those pursuing it, was the start of their liberal downfall. Supporting Illegal Alien Amnesty and pandering to Obama did not help, either
Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace is definitely pre recorded, because many times on Friday’s Chris Wallace tells on of the hosts on FNC who he is going to have on his show to interview
Since my wife retired, Fox is on all day. She eschews quiet.
She has like me begun to talk back to the TV, sometimes even quite sharply.
Lies and omission of news are a road to death.
The last time I watched the news on TV was when I was moving from CT to Florida and I had to leave the night of the Blizzard of 2013.
We drove all night to out-run the storm. Once safely past it and ensconced in a Virgina hotel room, I watched CNN & TWC (FOX’s coverage was terrible for some reason) because I knew they would have non-stop coverage with crazy reporters standing in 10ft snow drifts while being pummeled by ice crystals traveling at 60mph.
And they predictably did not disappoint right down to the storm having it’s own theme music.
But, when the Boston Marathon terrorists struck and I was in a waiting room with CNN on, I came here first using my phone and followed links from FReepers. The only other online source I used was a local Boston channel’s website that I was familiar with from back home; their breaking-type news coverage is not bad for a Lib-Mecca station.
It honestly never even occurred to me to turn on the TV for any news about the Marathon Bombing like I did when the WTC was hit way back in the “olden days” of 2001.
It is criminal how these “news” organizations present the facts-Zimmerman being the latest example-when it is merely a combination of opinion and outright lies.
I can’t even check my weather on TWC website without being bombarded by global warming lies etc. and just last week, they had a “Warning:Graphic content” picture of a cow-or some kind of bovine- hanging in mid-air from a crane!
I have absolutely NO idea what that had to do with anything as I refused to click on it and haven’t been back since.
Why Conservatives don’t have their own TV & news station, sharing those pesky little things called facts, is beyond me. It is such a missed opportunity and I had high hopes for FOX, but they seem to have either put it on cruise control or have fallen asleep at the wheel. I hope Megyn Kelly is able to shift gears (and while they’re at it, they should switch Greta and BOR’s time slots as he is unwatchable IMHO).
So thank God for FR-which reminds me I have to check my Powerball tickets, because if I win, FR is getting a huge upgrade ;)
I do that too, especially if a liberal is on before I mute him and here. Sometimes I do it to BOR too
TV or Cable news only works when it actually is news.
What regularly kills much of it are corporate executives who neither understand or appreciate real news, and think they can boost ratings by diluting it with nonsense. The end result is called “infotainment”.
“Infotainment is “information-based media content or programming that also includes entertainment content in an effort to enhance popularity with audiences and consumers.”
Infotainment has just the opposite effect.
A big reason for this is that the news appeals to consumers only because of the perception of objectivity and credibility. With infotainment, both go out the window.
Reporters become “journalists”, which means they surrender any effort to be objective, or even to appear to be objective. For an extreme example, no one would suggest that anything Keith Olbermann had to say was in any way objective or fair; and thus, it was not news, just hate filled political diatribe, which you can get in bars from angry alcoholics that everyone wants to just shut up.
In a more normal sense, you can tell when a cable TV news organization is going downhill. One of the first things they do is try to create “roundtable” discussions, that are just shouting matches. Then they try to create a “Good Morning America” show, bringing in utterly vacuous stories about “Binky the wonder poodle”, and other mindless crapola.
If you look at either CNN or Fox News when they first began, they had solid news, and nothing but news, and they were very popular. But then some corporate executive went in there and squeezed the news out in favor of b.s. And their ratings went on a downward slope every since.
I’m afraid they never learn, either.
Actually if they had done that they would have been immediately banned from broadcasting.
Unless conservatives stay home again.
I don’t understand why Roger Ailes, a man I completely respect, allowed this laziness to happen. Perhaps it stems from the complacency that comes with being on top by so much for so long. But it’s not compelling or interesting. As a former Senate press secretary, I can tell you that getting a Member of Congress, a newsmaker, to show up in front of a camera is as easy as drunkenly slipping on ice in a footrace. Greta does it regularly.He does it because television isn't about delivering news.
It's about capturing the largest possible audience in order to present advertising. As such, the major decisions about what to broadcast are made, not by news people, but by marketing consultants.
The best place for news junkies is the internet.
Hey! How did I get in this story?
I don’t watch any US news channels.
They talk more about the Kartrashians than they do about real news.
Cable TV news has always sucked. Why anyone would watch it all day long is completely incomprehensible to me. It always has been mostly repetition of the same 5 stories hour after hour.
It’s a shame it took the author so long to wake up.
Some interesting numbers here.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Digital-Set-Surpass-TV-Time-Spent-with-US-Media/1010096
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