Tuesday, July 31, 2007
THE CABLE CONUNDRUM
I'm not the brightest penny in the jar...I'm not terribly highbrow...and there's no capital "j" when I call myself a journalist.But my general disdain for the cable news networks has only deepened in the past few days. (Please see my June 28th post, "Feeding the Pig.")
It's no surprise that MSNBC, CNN, and FOX latched on to the Petit murders, given their history of the crimes they select for national coverage.
But on Monday, MSNBC went way over the top in promoting one of its "talk" shows.
Basically, the promotion touted interviews with other people allegedly burgled by the suspects in the Petit murders, and with a full screen graphic asked: "Were they minutes away from death?" (Or something close to that.)
Obviously, they were not. Nor, in the end, did they appear on the program.
Promos are designed, of course, to get you to watch. But in this case, it was promotion run amuck.
It made the Petits "product" instead of "people."
Shameful.
Earlier Monday, there was coverage of a police chase in Dallas.
O.J., of course, made live coverage of police chases a national spectator sport. It's called (gulp) "good television"...which I guess is kind of like good buttered popcorn. It's fun to consume, but not very nutritious.
What do we all really hope to see in the end of these chases? A horrible accident? A suspect blown away on national television?
This, of course, follows Friday's awful collision of 2 TV news helicopters in Phoenix in which 2 pilots and 2 photojournalists were killed as they followed a police chase.
I can tell you that, having logged hundreds of hours in a television news helicopter, I would refuse to fly in a situation in which 5 helicopters are buzzing about each other.
And I would flatly refuse to fly if the pilot was doing anything other than flying the chopper (in this case, flying and reporting at the same time.)
My heart goes out to the 4 men who died and to their colleagues.
But my very cold question is: if they were covering "good television"...did their horrible misfortune make it better television?
One final note on last night's MSNBC program. After its "coverage" of the Petit story, the next story had the caption: "NBC crew catches strippers in plain sight on the golf course."
WOW!!!
Are tee times available?
Posted at 12:17 AM by Gerry
1 Comments:
My heart goes out to Dr. Petit....this was a story, a crime that I wish was fiction. Sadly, it is fact, and I grieve so so much. Be well, Gerry. Peter N.
Post a Comment
<< Home