« Where There's Smoke, There's A Lawmaker | Main | President Visits Chattanooga »
February 21, 2007
The Gwen Ifill Tower
The room in which I often eat lunch has recently been endowed with televisions, and so, like many others, I've taken to nonchalantly glancing at one while conversing with tablemates and eating my daily fare. After all, they're all tuned to CNN Headline News (tm or whatevertheheck), so we can get caught up, right up to midday, on world and national events.
There's just one small problem. This "news" channel — some have, at one point in time anyway, considered it a premier news source — doesn't play any news worth mentioning. Today there was actually a break from the constant mania over some dearly departed bimbo, because they just had to tell everyone about a car chase that happened to be going on in Florida at the moment. Great. I needed proof that some fool was acting crazy in Florida.
And when the car chase met its end in a not-so-Daytona crash, what did they cut to? Well, nothing at first; they just followed this idiot through people's backyards. But then, yep, that's right: back to Anna Nicole Smith. (Um, please pardon my one Google bomb. I've got a wife and kid, you know.)
What has happened down in Atlanta? Who's running this show?
Worse yet, why is there such a demand for this? We all know that that's what drives content, right? Or does it? I'm not out to solve that conundrum, but when do media programmers have to face some kind of reprimand for output that is downright criminally poor in quality?
For another take on the same idea, see the Resonance blog.
News | By joe lance | 05:47 PM