"news" "coverage"

[didymus]

Is anybody else sick of how they report news? It really struck me the other day with the Times Square bombing story. The initial story took a minute, maybe two to report: man reports car, cops check it out, clear Times Sq., car contains bomb which, thank God, doesn’t go off.

That would have been the perfect point to say, “Stay tuned and we’ll bring you further details as they come in” but nooooo. They have to bring in all their talking-head “experts” to speculate on no facts until:

The mayor, governor, chief of police and other poobahs step up to the mics to make their statements based on no more facts than we already have.

Next day, a few more facts, like why the bomb didn’t work, endless speculation by more experts. Et cetera, ad nauseum.

I didn’t think of this but Jon Stewart pointed out, do we really want to tell bombers just how they can do better next time?

How can we convince networks it’s okay to say, “That’s all we know”? I get sick of them chewing over the same thing over and over.

 

[dixieagle]

Is anybody else sick of how they report news? It really struck me the other day with the Times Square bombing story. The initial story took a minute, maybe two to report: man reports car, cops check it out, clear Times Sq., car contains bomb which, thank God, doesn’t go off.

That would have been the perfect point to say, “Stay tuned and we’ll bring you further details as they come in” but nooooo. They have to bring in all their talking-head “experts” to speculate on no facts until:

The mayor, governor, chief of police and other poobahs step up to the mics to make their statements based on no more facts than we already have.

Next day, a few more facts, like why the bomb didn’t work, endless speculation by more experts. Et cetera, ad nauseum.

I didn’t think of this but Jon Stewart pointed out, do we really want to tell bombers just how they can do better next time?

How can we convince networks it’s okay to say, “That’s all we know”? I get sick of them chewing over the same thing over and over.

There is a solution…don’t watch if you don’t like the coverage. The only thing that counts is ratings, which = advertising $$$.

 

[Lutheranteach]

I do have a problem with it, and it’s gotten worse for a number of reasons. It really irks me because I was in that line of work for a good while. There are a number of reasons for it.

1. It’s now more important to be first than to be right. The thinking now is that you can go back and correct things but once you are beat to a story, you’re beat. I prefer you get it first and get it right and if you have to pick GET IT RIGHT
2. News used to be a an accepted loss. Once upon a time there were no commercials during the news and it lasted an hour. Why, so no advertiser influenced the news department. Now, the news is expected to sell soap and cars just like every other program. So we have to make the news entertaining and stretch out big stories so we can sell stuff.
3. CBS ABC, AND NBC used to be owned by CBS, ABC, and NBC. Now, they are owned by other companies that demand a profit and pressure the news toward a certain tact. GE owns NBC. Don’t expect NBC to break the news if GE’s jet engines suddenly fail and plans crash.
4. More and more TV and radio stations are are owned by fewer and fewer people. So you get canned news and programming that various very little and takes the direction the owner wants it to take.
5. Local news is garbage. Use a stop watch and you’ll find without sports and weather there is only about 7 minutes of local news in a local newscast. But, you will get stories about puppies being rescued from a sewer halfway across the country.