That was a quote of his that came out yesterday.
When they started the first half-hour news show he said “Why don’t we just report the top 15 news stories and skip the “in depth” stories about stray cats?”
I personally have always wanted just news in my newscast. No chitchat, no sports, weather, and Dow numbers (unless actually news that day), and no “magazine” or “man on the street interviews” or political essays. Just do the same thing for TV that the front page of the newspaper does for print media. The other things are there in the medium, but on another page or another program.
Would you want a news-only newscast?
- yes
- no
- undecided
- don’t care
- other
Yes. I want the facts. I don’t care about how Fluffy found her way home. I’d like half an hour of ‘hard news’, and another half-hour of in-depth analysis of the issues raised in the first half-hour.
No, I want the news to tell me what will be important for me on that day. It may be an earthquake in St. Petersburg, or the box score for the Rangers game last night. Also, the fluff stories tend to remind people that the news is not all bad, that sometimes good things happen.
SSG Schwartz
I’d also like to have a news channel that, whenever I decide to tune in, has news.
And I want a pony.
‘Hard news’ is not necessarily bad news.
Local news ratings are highly tied into the weather report. That’s why you see all that fancy doppler radar and other stuff. If the ratings dip one change they look at first is fire the weather girl/guy. (I lived next to a TV weather person until she got fired)
When I was in Knoxville a local station got a huge boost in ratings just by hiring away the weather girl from the highest rated station.
Yes, I’d like a newscast that is almost all “hard news.” Especially in this day and age, when most of us can easily just look online or on the specialty TV channels for sports and weather and the latest Hollywood dirt.
But one thing to consider–sports and weather an entertainment can absolutely be real news. For example, the results of big championships are news. The steroid scandals are news. Plaxico Dumbass shooting himself in the leg was news. Most people probably would like to hear who won Wimbledon, but don’t really care about the score of yesterday’s Toledo Mudhens double-header. In other words, a sports story could be included in the half-hour, but it doesn’t need to be a regular segment. Local weather probably would be good to include, but maybe they could cut the whole “weatherman personality” thing.*
Perhaps a good solution would be to have a half-hour of “real news,” and then a half-hour of sports highlights, cat-in-a-tree stories, and gossip about Jennifer Aniston.
The “fluff” you talk about is probably what Cronkite would have considered hard news. After all, one of the most influential news decisions of his career was his deciding to run a fluff feature that they had been holding back for several weeks about this weirdly coiffed rock band that was unknown in the states but had British girls screaming so loudly that no one could hear the music – the Beatles. It was clearly a fluff piece (Cronkite didn’t run it on its originally scheduled date because JFK had been assassinated that day), but ultimately one of the most important news items in popular culture. Ed Sullivan saw it and decided to book the act, and American teens started listening to the Beatles music.
No, he had no problem with human interest pieces; they were part of what he did.
What he was objecting to was opinion disguised as news. Channels like Fox News and MSNBC that weren’t really digging for news, but merely reporting rumors and getting a bunch of talking heads with agendas commenting on it. None of the cable news networks are particularly good at uncovering stories, and that’s what he objected to.
In any case, I want news, not commentary.
I’m with RealityChuck on this one. There’s enough latitude in the definition of “news” to include consumer news, human interest, sports and the rest.
What I’m against is spending 90 seconds of a 12-minute news block on the inspirational story of a mama dog who nursed a kitten or the newest coffee flavor at Starbucks while ignoring news that doesn’t automatically come with pretty pictures.
What I don’t like is the sensationalism. If something is Very Important News, give us the story. Not After The Break or When We Come Back. Now. Otherwise it can’t be that important. You want ratings? I’ll switch to the first news program that cuts the hype.
Would you want a news-only newscast?
1) yes
2) no
3) undecided
4) don’t care
5) other
Hell, yes. That’s why I choose CBC and NPR and PBS. Not perfect, but superior.
Yes on the news. I often rotate through the major news channels and am amazed by the number of times they all report the same manufactured story. It really grinds me to see a “health report” that each pulled off a fax machine and reported in almost identical words. When an organization sends you information it’s not news, it’s a commercial.
True enough, but a plant closing and costing hundreds of jobs is more likely to make the news than a bunch of Soldiers handing out sandals to children in Iraq. A new factory opening in a small town may not even make it on the national news unless it is in Mexico.
SSG Schwartz
Yes. Only news, no opinion, no tabloid scandal, no chit-chat.
Furthermore, sport is not news. Sport is sport, and worse than that it’s usually sports results. Sport can have its own show, or even better its own channel, and stay off the Evening News altogether.
Yes. Tell me what the government did today, tell me that Big Food Company just recalled their contaminated snack crackers, tell me that there was a big fire downtown. Please don’t tell me what you think about any of the above, please don’t tell me about vapid Hollywood celebrities, please don’t tell me about this great new way to save money at the gas pump by giving the minimum-wage attendant a blowjob.