So, Neurotik, we should pound the same loop of footage into everyone’s head around the clock until we’re all so numbed by the constant diet of horror that no one can feel anything anymore? I’m sorry, but that’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Or maybe you know nothing about how the human mind and heart work.
Haven’t you ever wondered why people who work around death all the time learn to make jokes about it? They do it to stay sane. If you don’t have something lighthearted interjected into the pain and the worry and the heartbreak every now and then, you break down and are no good to anyone. Nobody can absorb a constant, never-ending stream of horror without becoming desensitized to it or going crazy. Nobody.
That’s why we try to give our troops diversions when they aren’t actively fighting. Books, movies, the occasional USO show, something. Trust me, if it’s at all possible, some of our troops will be watching the NCAA tourney, regardless of what CBS chooses.
If the networks want to pre-empt, they should pre-empt. Those of you who want to watch your sports unfettered, fine. That’s what cable and satellite dishes are for. And, if you want to escape and watch movies, there’s TNT, TBS, SciFi, VHS and DVD. You don’t have them pumped into your living room via a network station in order to see them, you know.
There are probably other people who only get network TV who will want to see the war coverage. I am sure the networks will decide which portion of their audience is greater, and which portion they want to cater to. If enough people make a stink about excessive war coverage, I’m sure the networks will cave and keep the sports on the networks. If not, I guess that means enough people wanted war coverage instead. Sounds about right to me.
What some seem to forget is that television is not one enterprise controlled by one entity. Instead it is made up of many (well, not as many as it used to be) companies each independently trying to make the best business decisions they can. News division reputations are at stake, too.
CBS/Viacom can not simply say, “Well, NBC and ABC will be covering that war thing so we can just show the NCAAs and everthing will be jake.” The stations are not all working in collusion here, folks-- each one has to do what is thinks best. For CBS, (which I sometimes work for) the choice will be easy.
Whether you’re pro or anti-war, the event is huge-- any network news division that failed to cover this story would be the laughing-stock of the media world.
Besides, don’t you think CBS would rather that the war didn’t pre-empt their precious March ratings-fest?? If Bush put war off until April 8th Black Rock would cheer.
Oh and by the way…
IUPUI won’t take the Cats, but their big brothers down at the main campus in Bloomington will finish off Kentucky in the semi-finals.
DoctorJ, I understand your pain. As a current student of the University of the 2003 National Champions (UK, baby), I was screaming obscenities at Dan Rather Sunday when he interrupted the SEC title game. I can’t believe that our Fearless Leader would have the unmitigated gall to schedule a war during March Madness.
Anyway, the title game will have to be on broadcast, since it’s the biggest non-Super Bowl sporting event. You’ll get to see us cut the nets down in New Orleans, and hopefully you’ll see Keith Bogans get Tournament MVP.
Well sure you cover it. The question is how do you cover it? It’s not World War Three we’re talking about, nor is it an attack on American soil. I don’t see why they’d have to go to continuous coverage when, judging from Gulf War One, they can adequately tell everything there is to tell about the war in a 30 minute news program. CBS managed to do the first Gulf War that way, why can’t they do this one the same way? As I said above, just run a news ticker below the games, have a few updates over the afternoon, go to continuous coverage during the dinner break, then back to basketball. That seems like perfectly adequate coverage considering how little information is likely to be available.
No? See my pit thread for a pretty good example of what “continuous coverage” is going to be like. The few tidbits of information a day we’ll have can easily be put onto a ticker, and then covered in more detail on the regular 30 minute Nightly News. Remember Gulf War One? Remember how really little we actually learned from each of those Schwarzkopf press briefings? He couldn’t answer 99% of their questions, and the information he did give out was obvious and pointless. What exactly do you expect them to talk about for hours at a time? It will just be worthless speculation by talking heads, what’s the value in giving that type of “coverage”?
I’m just pissed off that I lived at the corner of Woodland and Euclid for four years, from shortly after our last national title (July of 1998) until last summer. Now that the police are dusting off their riot gear for another shindig at Celebration Corner, where am I? North Fucking Carolina.
That’s OK–I wisely took some vacation that week, so I’ll be around for the festivities when Tubby and the boys open up their can of Final Four whoop-ass.
They’ll have a tough game against Mississippi State. If they squeak by that one, they certainly don’t have the oomph to get past OK.
Sometimes I suspect that too many people think, “No other gods before football (or basketball, or baseball, or hockey)”. I’m not saying that this thread is evidence of that, but, come on. It isn’t as if the sports events you so anticipate will be cancelled outright. They just won’t be as readily available as you’d like them to be. Maybe you will have to pony up for cable or a satellite dish in order to see them. That’s not the same as the sporting events being absolutely blacked-out, completely unavailable to see.
yosemitebabe, I see you are from southern California. Therefore, I must assume you know nothing of the power that University of Kentucky basketball holds over those that follow it. UK season tickets are fought over in divorces and passed down in wills. Students willingly spend as long as 6 hours in Memorial Coliseum during ticket lotteries for the chance to buy tickets. Weddings and funerals are scheduled so as not to conflict with UK games. My old high school virtually shut down during the first round of the tournament because everyone watches the game during class rather than working. UK basketball is not just a game here, it’s a religion and a way of life. CBS will never break away from a UK tournament game if it’s a blowout, because they know that thousands of UK fans will call CBS headquarters in New York to complain (it’s happened before.)
DoctorJ, I reluctantly have the Cards beating Mississippi State, although the Bulldogs have plenty of weapons, most notably Austin and Zimmerman. If they can make it to the Sweet 16, Oklahoma will bitch slap them.
Brianjedi, too few people understand what it’s like to be a basketball fan in Kentucky in March. Truly it’s the most wonderful time of the year. The Cats are unbeatable this year, and it’s almost time for the boys’ state basketball tournament, aka “The Greatest Show on Earth.” At my old high school (Montgomery County) we usually got to watch NCAA tourney games during class. We got out of school two and a half days when our Indians made it to the Sweet 16 in '95, my senior year. Memories, memories.
Goo Fee, c’mon now. The Hoosiers don’t want any. Even if we did meet up with them (and that’s assuming that they can beat Pittsburgh), Mike Davis will probably spazz out and cost them a chance to beat us.
The games WILL be played, now it’s only a matter of what channel shows them.
Props to Miles Brand for his “we will not let a tyrant dictate our lives” speech. The only way it would have been better is if he had said, “If we don’t play March Madness, then the terrorists have already won.”
Of course, guess who DID cave? Proud To Be Yer Bud, who wussed out of A’s/Mariners in Japan.
A war that was protested by millions around the world before it even began (and please, none of this “what about the other 285 million Americans” BS…what about the tiny handfuls that actually came out in support, you goddam nimrods). Done in response…supposedly…to a terrorist action that Iraq had nothing to do with. No clear mandate. Not a word on how exactly we’re going to implement this post-Saddam democratic regime (given the Afghanistan situation, in which the same people who led to the rise of the Taliban are back in the saddle, I’m not optimistic). An entire UN against us, and really, who the hell can blame them.
And I know exactly what the coverage will be like. Sanitized, watered-down, Administration-approved dreck, with not one word about casualties on either side or the damage we’re doing. Remote control warfare. Spin, spin, spin, lies, lies, lies.
F* that s****.*** Give me the best college basketball players in the country competing on a national stage with all the pomp, pageantry, excitement, unpredictability, thrills, joy, despair, and sheer entertainment. Aw, hell, I want the Final Four to absolutely blow away that ridiculous pathetic war in the ratings.
A time-honored sporting event where elite athlets get to vie for the greatest prize of all…or a phony-baloney war sledgehammered by a self-serving blood-crazed moron. Easy choice, no?
I’m sorry…even in The Pit, I have trouble actually writing those words. Just too much damn baggage. I’ll explain some other time…
So if the war is so important that every TV channel is obliged to show coverage 24/7, doesn’t it follow that I would be obliged to watch it 24/7? Isn’t doing anything else just thumbing my nose at the great task our nation has set out to perform? Should I stay home from work?
Speaking of work, those who have followed my last couple of Pit threads might recall that work for me, this month, is taking care of patients in the intensive care unit. I love this gig, having responsibility for a couple dozen people in various stages of dying can be a little overwhelming. That’s why March Madness was going to be that much sweeter this year–nothing takes the sting out of a week on the unit like a fridge full of cold Sierra Nevada and many hours of something as grandiose and ultimately meaningless as NCAA basketball. Instead, I may come home from my week of death to find nothing on TV but excruciatingly repetitive coverage of more death, this time halfway around the world.
So that’s why it bugs me.
Dr. J
[small](Did I, a Kentuckian, just refer to basketball as “meaningless”? I’ll never be able to show my face in Lexington again.)[/small]
Tsk, tsk, DoctorJ. Basketball is meaningless? Your perspective is all messed up. So you’re a Sierra Nevada man? Ewwwww. We used to call that abomination “ass in a glass”. Sam Adams, my friend. Sam Adams.
So you’re a Sierra Nevada man? Ewwwww. We used to call that abomination “ass in a glass”. Sam Adams, my friend. Sam Adams.