I wathing a cable news show, when they started doing a story on ‘Dogstar’, Keanu Reeves’ band. Now I know nothing about this band and really could give a shit about Keanu, but I figure, what the hell, maybe they play cool music. I’ll continue to watch.
The first part of their ‘news story’ was a clip, not of ‘Dogstar’, but of ‘Bill and Teds excellent adventure’!!!. “WE are ‘Wild Stallion’, party on duuude”
And then a snot-nosed female reporter doing and incredibly lame Keanu surfer-dude accent to start off the piece.
What the fuck! I thought the implication was clear. ‘Dogstar’ was an infantile, brainless band, much like Bill and Ted’s, and you should in no way take this music seriously. Thank you for that fair and balanced fluff piece of tv journalism.
Hey, they may well suck. But fuck you for telling me what to think ahead of time. I didn’t even find out what the music was like because I turned off the tube in disgust. If If I was Keanu, I think I’d be a little hurt.
And this was on the FOX news channel. Tag line ‘We report, You decide!’ Yeah, right. Fuck off. Or maybe I just need a nap.
I hear ya, OP. TV channels need people to watch, or they don’t make money. People watch fluff about celebrities (not smart people, but people) so they plaster clebrities everywhere. Did you know the circulation of the National Enquirer is TWICE that of the Wall Street Journal or New York Times? The sad truth is that for every person like you (the OP) out there there are TWO morons who would’ve watched that “news story” about Dogstar, solely because it was about Keanu Reeves.
I happened to see this thing after reading the OP. Talk about an overreaction!
The thing wasn’t a “News Story”, it was an entertainment story, by the entertainment people and the aspiring MTV rock-n-roll reporter-bimbo.
Their angle was Keanu Reeves, because that’s the angle of the band. They are a mediocre-at-best house band that tours nationwide because Keanu plays mediocre bass for them.
Keanu featured solo:
nang nang nang nang nang nang nang nang nerrrrrrrgh
nang nang nang nang nang nang nang nang nerrrrrrrgh
nang nang nang nang nang nang nang nang nerrrrrrrgh
repeat for 3 minutes.
They interviewed some audience members before the show, and it was unanimous. No one could name a song that Dogstar did, or even cared–they just came to see Keanu. In fact, what is apparently the band’s signature piece is a Carpenters cover. The band is just a diversion for an overpaid, bored play-actor and believe me–the story was not only appropriate, but way more than this group deserved, and way more than they’d ever have seen if Keanu wasn’t standing up front.
You’re so oversensitive that you turned the TV off, thus preventing yourself from hearing the band, and you blame the person on television. Gee, yeah, I guess it was her fault.
Oh, I get it now. It appeared in the media so therefore it must be good and right. If the media wants to report about the anthill next to the local dump, why then that would also be good and right. And if they want to do it in an annoying and brainless manner, that must be their right and privilege. And who are we to complain about it? Limpdick.
Example of stupid reporters -
Actual quote from on the scene reporter at the site of a fatal car crash:
“There were three people in Honda, one driver and two passengers.”
Thanks for clearing that up. Otherwise I would have thought there were two drivers and one passenger, or possibly NO driver and three passengers, which would actually go a long way at explaing the crash.
Well, I know that everyone here speaks in English as eloquent and sublime as the writing of Dickens or Shakespeare or Twain, even when asked to speak spontaneously on an event which just occurred.
I’d like to see some of you thrown with a cameraman and a pad full of notes onto an accident scene, complete with ambulances, police, other newspeople and gawkers, and be told, “We’re live in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1!” and see how well you do. Even the most seasoned professional sometimes says things that sound stupid at the time.
Point well taken, pldennison. On the other hand, that wasn’t really my point. I just like pointing out points of redundancy and pointedly stupid remarks, which I run across from time to time (or point to point). I point to TV on-the-point news reports as mere starting point, for these points of silliness.
I hope you grap my point.
Oh one other thing.
Point! (I felt I needed to get another one in there)
“We’re live here at the scene of a multi-car, school bus, train and airplane accident… the police and ambulances are on the scene and emergency personel are sorting through the human wreckage. The authorities have not released the official cause of the accident nor the names of the victims. The blackbox seems to be missing as well… we will continue to repeat ourselves endlessly until we can eek out a single iota of useful and relevant information. Please stay with us as we continue to take wild assed guesses as to the cause of the accident. If the authorities do not come up with some plausable information soon we will begin to interview some of these gawkers who clearly have nothing better to do than stand around and watch the bodies being pulled out of the burning wreckage. Who knows, maybe some of them heard the noise of the crash and they can describe to us, in their limited capacity, what the impact sounded like. So once again, we have absolutely no relevant or accurate explanation but we will continue to speculate while the cameras pan over the burning wreckage and while emergency personel pick up the various body parts…”
…and that’s the news folks. It’s not what you report it’s how soon you can start reporting it - the facts be damned.
Last night, the local Fox news tried to tie in the X-Men movie with the implications of the sequencing of the human genome.
Movies like X-Men are now cashing in on this scientific discovery! (Uh, the movie was in the works over a year ago. The announcement on genome sequencing was made about two weeks ago. Not to mention that the movie is based on a 34 year old comic book title.)
Will we start seeing mutants like those in the movies? (Nooooooooo, it’s called “fiction”. There isn’t actually a gene sequence that gives people the ability to psychokinetically manipulate ferrous objects.)
And they did this about five times over news teasers, before commercial breaks and then finally in the fluff piece. What irks me most is that anyone with a couple of spare brain cells to rub together would have known they were talking out of their ass. If they’re going to treat us like idiots, could they put a little more work into it?
phouka, those kinds of “synergistic” cross-promotions, I have no patience for. (“X-Men” is, of course, a Fox movie, so if the station was a Fox O&O, they get told to promote the movie on-air.) I think the media do themselves a disservice by engaging in that sort of thing. But, as I mentioned in another thread, when a Chicago station dumped all those sorts of things and concentrated on hard journalism in their late newscast, their ratings hit the floor. Just goes to show you, you never know.
The thing is, they don’t have to work at it, and they know it. Years of TV programming has proved that while the occasional gems crop up, crap and fluff are all they need strive for to draw the masses and turn a profit.
I noticed something a few years ago, and once I started looking I saw it everywhere. It was a local, evening newscast, and they were doing a story on some recent scientific “breakthrough” (that word is wildly overused, but I’m trying to set the mood here). It was about Fermat’s Last Theorem or evidence of planets around other stars or something, and the report had to get into a bit of technical detail. The clip ended and the camera went back on the anchor. He smiled and shook his head and said “I don’t understand any of this.” And he said it like he was bragging! The co-anchor smiled back at him and chuckled, and then they both smiled into the camera.
When did it become okay for people in this position to admit, and even brag about their own ignorance? I don’t know if the fault for this lies with the anchors, or with the news director who selects the anchors, but it seems that they’d rather look friendly than smart.
Watch for this after any science story on a happy, friendly newscast.
"… Still no word from the authorities, but we’ve managed to sneak around behind an ambulance to pull away a sheet from this freshly BBQ’d corpse. As you can see, it was once a man but now looks more like an overdone rack of ribs. It appears from the staring eyes and shocked grimace that the gentleman died in horrible agony. Our medical experts tell us from the nature of the injuries it was not a quick death. Here we can see where his guts were fried so hot they burst, revealing his last meal to be eggs and toast. Onlookers describe the smell as ‘thick enough to blind a dock rat’. Still no word on who this man was or his next of kin, although they are sure to see this broadcast.
This just in; we have an instant replay from the overhead traffic cameras. Going now to tape. A clear street; but from uphill here comes the bus and now the impact. Note how his carcass is flung violently into the windshield by the force of the crash. Due to recent camera upgrades you can actually see the spray of blood as his nose explodes. Replay that; you can definitely see a red fog hanging in the air. Amazing. He’s out cold, but wait! Sure enough, he comes around just as the flames reach his feet. Eee-yo, that’s gotta hurt! We can see his shoes actually bubbling as they melt to his feet. Now that’s a hot foot! In the corner there, you can see our sound man dash past the fire extinguisher to bravely push the microphone closer. Our tech van is working with state of the art equipment to synchronize his hopeless shrieks of indescribable agony with the video. By filtering out background noise we can clearly hear the victim sob as he screams for his mommy and prays for death. We have digitally enhanced the image to give you a better closeup of his ineffective scrabbles and spasms as his strength fades. We apologize for not being able to give you a better view of the expression on what’s left of his face as he writhes under the wave of flaming gasoline.
And now a bulletin; the man was the pastor of this small town. A pillar of the community for over 50 years, highly respected and active in many local charities, he personally baptized many of the local citizens. A kind man, a gentle man, he reportedly was on his way to a fundraiser to buy meals for the homeless during the holidays. With us now is his wife of 27 years and two sons. Tell us, ma’am, how does it feel to be a widow in such a greusome manner? Oh, you hadn’t heard? It appears we’ve got the audio synched up now, so please give us your reaction as we replay the video of your husband’s slow, grisly death. There, freeze that frame! That is your father, right kids? What’s that, you can’t tell for sure through the death rictus? What the hell good are you little turds then? And in sports, Joe Thighsman breaks his leg 54 times in slow motion…"
It is indeed a privilege to enjoy such balanced, factual… Ah, ah, ka-OH MY GOD WON’T EVERY BOTTOM FEEDING AMBULANCE CHASER PLEASE FUCK OFF-choo! Oops, that just slipped out. How awkward.