Is this the closest we've been to war on your watch?

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Teaser for some interview with Obama this morning.

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What Time....?

I want to turn off the radio and TV

DP

I think it's for an after work thing because the interview is with Katie Couric.

I'm more interested in the narrative that Obama hasn't been to war apparently.

Listen to an old Dan Carlin Common Sense podcast last night on this subject and he hit a home run with it. Pretty much called out ted turner and said let him run CNN for a few months and that he would double the shitty ratings he gets and actually start making a difference in the US mostly by hiring the best, brightest, and most combative journalist on the planet.

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CBS used to be respected. ABC and NBC used to be respected

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They all went downhill when they got in bed with major corporations. ala NBC being bought by GE. It wasn't about real news anymore, it was about protecting the bottom dollar and not reporting anything that could hurt GE's interest... that's where it all went downhill. I'd guess early 80's, but that is just a wild guess considering I wasn't born until 82'

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They all went downhill when they got in bed with major corporations. ala NBC being bought by GE. It wasn't about real news anymore, it was about protecting the bottom dollar and not reporting anything that could hurt GE's interest... that's where it all went downhill. I'd guess early 80's, but that is just a wild guess considering I wasn't born until 82'

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Meh......as a guy that used to be in the industry here's my take on the downfall:
1) There really isn't enough "important" news to warrant a 24 hour news station.
2) News channels live off of ratings.
3) The way to get ratings is to appeal to the broadest audience possible
4) The one thing they used to be able to hang their hat on was exclusive interviews. They are petrified of pissing off politicians and getting excluded from news tipoffs or exclusives.
5) Race is an easy topic to get ratings. Every minority member thinks they are being oppressed, and every majority member thinks the minorities get too much protection. This gets ratings.
6) The other way to get ratings is to get the breaking news first. Thanks to dwindling audiences and dollars shifting online, the 24 hour news channels don't have the resources to fact check everything. This is why the quality of reporting suffers so much.

As a former industry guy, what I would do if I were CNN is hire Megyn Kelly, keep Anderson Cooper, and just have them literally report and update news for 24 hours, fire the rest of the staff, and hire an army of assistant producers to ensure the accuracy and quality of information being reported. Maybe hire or retain a few for interviews but basically slash everything else.

The news would improve - be more honest, and I doubt the ratings would really suffer much - most of CNN / FOX / MSNBC ratings are not people that are actually interested rather it's just TV's turned on for background noise. Even if ratings did suffer you'd be infinately more profitable cutting off dead weight like Candy Crowley.

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This is the thing. Get some hard hitting up and coming journalist that invite the politicians to come do hard combative interviews. If they refuse, you put them on blast and make them out a coward. Get the journalist to do the hard stories that no one is reporting. Other news stations would have to follow suit even if they would rather stay away from the topic or they are left with egg on their face for not reporting the "real" stories instead of sticking to the status quo.

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We are in agreement, but in the media game it's easy to lose a cushy gig and hard to land another one. None of the executives want to be first.

The other thing though is all of media is regulated by the FCC, so it's a little different than the sports world.

I will also say this during my 14 year stint in media: most of the people that produce and report the news in general have BA degree. Typically Journalism, English, Psychology, History majors. They are very weak when it comes to economics, business / accounting, and science. Thus it is easy for someone with a PHD and an agenda to hoodwink them. They don't have enough time to fact check the details, and they don't have the basic knowledge to be able to know what's fishy and what's not.

I mean for for crying out loud, Ali Velshi is the business anchor for CNN. He's a "religious studies" major. After graduation he worked for a democratic congressman.

I seriously doubt you could get him to talk for 1 hour minutes on the historical benefits and drawbacks of Keynsian economics vs. Austrian economics. But if he could, he's stand a far better chance getting a job working in finance making the same or more money than he currently makes at CNN.

You can also look at Erin Burnett. Graduated with a political science degree and worked in investment banking but never made it past being an analyst, I doubt she really learned more than how to really make kick arse excel spreadsheets and powerpoints.

The point is, because of the type of people that gravitate towards a career in media are going to be a little more liberal, and a little less understanding the complexities that surround a lot of the topics they are reporting on.

I love when people bitch and moan about TV news like they're not doing exactly what they should be: giving their audiences what they want to see and hear.

Don't like it? Well, there are dozens and dozens of written-word publications out there where you can read intelligent, investigative journalists, academics, et. al. on a vast range of topics from all perspectives. Not to mention podcasts, talk radio, libraries..

You're narrowing your scope to 3 or 4 TV stations and saying journalism has failed. No; the public has failed if they don't care to consume important, investigative journalism.