This is not a RIP Whitney Houston thread, it’s a “why the fuck did you interrupt the viewing of a kids’ show to say Whitney Houston is dead”? First, we sat there thinking the President had been shot or something, I mean it was downright weird given how long it took them to get to the point, because we figured it had to be pretty important. Second, it’s a kid show - I know you really want to be first to break the news, but really? Morons.
I suppose this should go in the Pit.
Crap, that was TODAY?
Is it the one from the 70s, where he gets the candy heart that says FORGET IT KID? Or is it a new one?
You’re serious. They broke into show for that? She’s a noted singer but her career has been effectively over for almost 10 years now, and her drug addiction has made her a favorite on various death watch betting pools.
It was probably the one that Lucy doesn’t pull the ball away. It’s a bit like the President being shot.
Yes, it was exactly that one…that cracked my kids up because it was so unexpected.
Did the news people like go on like “We are receiving breaking news blah blah”? 
As opposed to what? All those news break-ins with jugglers and fire-walkers?
Joe
One of my louder Facebook friends sent a letter to ABC over this.
I think it is just a phenomenon of modern life unfortunately.
I don’t care about the death of Whitney Houston any more than I care about the death of any other person I’ve never met but the media absolutely loves it. Forget the fact that any talent she had was used up two decades ago, forget the fact that she was an irrelevancy in modern music, the coverage will be sensationalist, mawkish, inescapable and shot through with the assumption that everyone should and does care…
It is a tragedy for her family, a time of sadness for her fans and an irrelevancy for the rest of the human race and it’d be nice if the media kept a sense of proportion.
Prediction, they will not.
I think you’ll hit the bullseye! They’ll just keep going on and on and on, ad nauseum/infinitum, just like with Anna Nicole. I mean, we know she’s dead-- why do we have to keep hearing about it!
I mildly ranted in the other Cafe Society thread on this subject. The announcer came on, re-iterated that it was a special report, and apologized for pre-empting Charlie Brown, and warned parents their kids might not want to hear the next message.
I seriously thought Iran had fired a nuke missile. They wouldn’t do this for a nuke test. 'Tho probably a presidential assassination attempt would have warranted a break.
Thing is, the announcer said in some markets, ABC World News was on. And what happened, are they running off a script, and can’t change it for breaking news?
Remember the story about Dan Rather in 1987, he stormed off the set because CBS Evening News was preempted by Women’s Tennis? William Poundstone mentions in one of his books that CBS made that decision because it was the first time an African-American was winning and because CBS was under fire at that time for racism at the corporate level. Maybe something similar is at work here. Or maybe someone at ABC thought it was important to be very trendy – trying to out-newsflash CNN, for example.
Lord knows I loved goddamn Whitney Houston, but yeah, this kind of thing is why God invented tickers.
Be interested in a quote, or even a paraphrase. What kept them from getting to the point? I’m thinking it went “Breaking news. ABC News interrupts this program with breaking news about a sudden and unexpected public event which may be too graphic or disturbing for certain viewers’s sensibilities. You may want to remove all children under the age of 8, or small pets, from the viewing area before we broadcast this newsbreak. Repeat, ABC news interrupts…” Like that?
Pretty close, though I suspect in retrospect that it took less than 10 seconds to get to the point. First the “breaking news graphic” of the Earth showed up and hung there, silently. Then some uncomfortable-looking anchor guy said something like what you said above, about the breaking news and watching with your kids etc., but I was so anxious to know what politician had been killed, or where a bomb had gone off, that instead of hearing the actual words, it was like I was hearing a meaningless noise, like brief, blatting squawks from a trumpet. It’s hard to describe.
Maybe this blogger heard correctly.
LOL. Epic decision.
Oy. What a stoopid decision by some pinhead in the network situation room.
In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead…
Yeah, short of the President, I can’t think of anyone whose death warrants breaking into a program. Well, in America, obviously adjust it for whatever the country’s leader is. Like the Queen (or Prime Minister) in England etc. Maybe the Pope, but not being Catholic, I’d still say nah, that can wait for 11pm or at least during the commercial break.
Obviously, if there’s some imminent danger (like someone said Iran launching) that’s another thing, but for the most part, almost nothing they break in with anymore actually is something worth breaking in, it’s just the news department’s ego, always trying to prove how important and relevant they are. It’s annoying as hell.
I gotta agree that’s crazy. Breaking into a broadcast for a instant news update for a washed up drug addicted pop star? :dubious:
That’s just stupid and very poor journalism.
We’ve come a long way from 1977, when CBS refused to lead its regularly-scheduled news broadcast with the death of Elvis Presley, since he was after all, “just an entertainer”.