Monday, October 16, 2006

Breaking News: Is CNN Broken?

Yesterday's reporting of the earthquake in Hawaii was the perfect example of how bad of a job CNN and the other major news networks are doing of keeping the American public informed. Of course the earthquake was newsworthy - but why did all the news channels turn into 24hour Earthquake Headquarters? Why is the news bent on scaring us? Why can't the news inform us? The major news networks are scared of the Internet taking away their viewers. I'd say they are doing more damage to themselves. The news today is broken.

Somehow the CNN, MSNBC, FOX are all hooked on the same monkey: don't tell the viewer in intelligent, distilled, salient, and verified report of the world's events. Instead, show them the most alarming event that they themselves don't understand (burning anything seems to work), then show a confusing and useless bunch of clips and guests who speculate on what is going on. No longer does it seem important to CNN to cover the days events. If anyone is dumbing down America, it must be the news.

It is such a fear driven news reporting style, that one wonders who is screwing this up this badly. Don't the reporters of America want more stories told? (by the way, why do these reporters speak like everything is a panic! somebody get Wolf Blitzer out of the situation room! His bullshit style seems to have infected all the networks. And please, end the Situation Room. Seventeen televisions playing at once is a moronic idea). The last thing I want to see is a reporter who knows nothing about a situation, spending too much time playing the same clip and guessing like a fool. If I wanted to see the live feed I would do so! I don't want the news to become the live feed.

Imagine if your favorite newspaper printed pictures and stories about things they just found out about, 5 seconds ago, without being able to confirm or figure out the story. How useful of a newspaper would that be?

Isn't there enough other things occurring in the world that we should hear about? Shouldn't the networks cover more? All the while, there are a zillion other things that are happening in the world and remain unreported.

What does this serve? Certainly not my hunger to know what is going on in the world. Certainly not the general American intellect.

And all the while, CNN has a flashing "Breaking News".
It should say "Broken News".
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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

since you have such a problem with the televised news why don't you just start your own news service or maybe just don't tune them in. your choice!

Cayo Dave said...

yes it is my choice to watch the news. I was just commenting on my frustration with the lack of quality and scope of the current reporting by CNN, FOX, and MSNBC. maybe anonymous is happy with the cable news networks. i suggest this is reflective of anonymous' limited capacity for the truth.

Anonymous said...

my, my, my, a bit of temper and name calling. how appropriate for you.

Cayo Dave said...

sorry mommy.
rotflol!!!

Anonymous said...

I couldn't agree with you more on the problem with network news. They just don't get it. They think this is what we want. I've completely abandoned television news because I can't stand it. I can imagine that other intellectuals like myself probably do the same.