So, we should be expecting posts in Cafe Society because CBS pushed back Amazing Race, Fox delayed the Simpsons and ABC put off Funniest Home Videos (schedule mostly made up)?
I can understand your annoyance, but not sure why football is the most important thing for a publicly licensed broadcaster to carry.
This +1. NBC gets a ton of privileges because they use public airwaves. You don’t want to broadcast the President’s speech? Fine. Give up your public airspace.
The President has given 17 public speeches so far this month. Should NBC have cut away for every speech? Because they didn’t. I guess we should revoke their license. What if the president decides to give a speech every night at prime time?
Agree completely! The lack of perspective in this thread boggles my mind, honestly. This was a MAJOR news story, and the POTUS is kinda big deal.
It was a major news story three days before the speech, by Sunday night there was nothing new to say.
Maddie-Was 9/11 still a story on 9/14?
You believe a school shooting by a crazy depressive is on par with 9/11? And I’m the one who needs perspective?
Only in that it was a significant news story. The fact that a football game is more important to you than the deaths of innocent children says ALOT about your perspective, or lack thereof.
BTW, 2 questions:
1.How much did you have on the game?
2.Did you win?
Hey, by Sunday night everyone had been dead for better than 48 hours, the news media had gnawed at the story like a dog with a bone, and I, quite frankly, was sick of hearing all the voyeuristic details every time I tried to check the news for other things. While I’m sure that Obama being there meant a lot to those that were there, I didn’t have any desire to listen to him talk about it. The Onion nailed it six months ago and it’s just as true for this one. I don’t need to hear about the latest funerals every time I log onto MSNBC or any other website with a news feed.
I don’t bet. And yes a football game is more important to me than a persons canned and served eulogy on some kids who died. I was disturbed when hearing about it on Friday, especially since I work in a public school. It is a tragedy but what else can be said as news? Nothing. The people in that town are personally connected to the story and it is important to then that the POTUS came to speak at thier vigil, but the rest of the unconnected world gains nothing from such an event. I don’t seek emotional or spiritual comfort from a politician. Had he had something to say about new developments, or policy going forward, etc maybe it would have been worth something. A bunch of kids die everyday. Every goddamned day, and I have a life to live that includes entertainment, and I could do without the President interrupting my entertainment to fuel the fires of recreational a outrage that overheat our already overheated nation of busybodies.
Yes. It was an important moment in a terrible time for America.
SNF was just a fucking football game. There will be others and frankly, your priorities are pretty messed up if you think football is more important.
I don’t care either way, as long as it is covered on some over the air station, that’s sufficient. It doesn’t need to be on every channel. You can reschedule a program but it’s not really feasible to reschedule a football game, and there may be contractual obligations involved also.
I don’t think the issue of which is more important is really relevant here.
The President needs to hire a better scheduler anyway. Whoever let him schedule a debate on his anniversary should be fired.
Football is more important to me than the presidents speech about a school shooting that I already know everything about. I feel good about my priorities, and I’m just a dumbfounded as you that people think differently. I don’t feel good about a person with no personal connection to the kids or town in the massacre who has to immediately drop whatever they are doing so they can hear the president say some stuff again he’d already said that day, and the day before, and the day before. Wallowing around in random tragedies certainly does give some meaning to some people’s lives, but I don’t need it. Each to their own, but I resent the implication that my choices in interest are immoral and therefore I deserve to have my program cut off even though everyone who’s interested is fully capable of scratching thier sorrow-jollies somewhere else.
We could choose to get all touchy-feely and personal, and argue how we each feel about the tragedy, and how we each feel about our TV entertainment, etc.
Or, we can be logical and discuss the content of the event.
It was known in advance what the President was going to speak about. No new policy, no new laws being proposed. This was not an emergency.
And therefore, this was not “Oh my God!! \i]\breaking news*.”
It was more like ‘previously scheduled’ news, or like the daily conference with reporters.
Those who wished to watch it live could do so. But nothing would be lost by watching it later.
I can’t fathom why any of the major networks carried the speech. It honestly surprises me to learn that they did.
This wasn’t some sort of emergency address at all. Coverage on C-Span, PBS, and cable news networks is more than adequate.
Yes.
It was a Presidential address about a national event, with the entirety of the American population the intended audience. Of all of the properties and networks NBC owns, the flagship is the only one obligated to carry such an address.
Did they all lose their remote controls? Was there no step stool a bartender could use to manually change the channel?
What in the world makes you think that “national emergency” is the standard? National emergencies necessitate the interruption of programming immediately. Presidential addresses about national events are instead scheduled for times when the greatest number of Americans will be viewing. Like, say, Sunday prime time. One could advance your arguments for the State of the Union address–it’s not an emergency, analysis and replay are readily available, etc.
Broadcast networks use public property, and part of the licensing requirement of that is they serve the public interest. The broadcasting industry has long agreed that prime-time Presidential addresses are a matter of public interest, hence their simulcast on every broadcast network. NBC did exactly the right thing by preempting sports on its broadcast network and shifting coverage to its pay-to-air affiliates (which have no “public interest” mandate).
I disagree that national news wasn’t made by the speech. It seems possible that there is a sea change in Americans attitudes towards guns. It is quite possible that gun control will be the main political story of the next year and gun control will likely impact the 2014 Congressional elections and possibliy the 2016 presidential elections. Before this shooting, gun control wasn’t really on the table, but now it is. That is a very big news story and much more important than a football game.
Lets be clear about one thing, this was not just a speech, it was an address to the Nation,it was meant and directed specifically at all of us. Now I am as much of an NFL junkie as the next person and I think that NBC could have justified not showing the speech,I think they should have shown it. They are given a trust with the public airwaves and I think along with that there is a responsibility to show the President when he is addressing the nation.
Now whether or not Obama should have made the Address at all or at that time is certainly worthy of discussion.
When was he supposed to make the address? If not then, when?
I was pissed that ABC interrupted Wipeout to show the speech.
First of all, that kind of memorial service should be PRIVATE. I don’t live in that community. You don’t live in that community. Parading their grief on TV is a callous and unfeeling move by the news networks looking to be on the scene of something important. It’s important, but not to the world. Leave those people alone.
Second, Obama wasn’t making any kind of policy declaration or emergency announcement in his speech. It was just a speech. Yes, he’s the President. But that doesn’t mean we need to see it when a lot of the world just wants to put the thought of 20 dead Kindergartners out of their minds.
I speak just for myself in that last part, but I can’t imagine I’m alone.