So, I just finished watching NBC’s “World News Tonight” with Brian Williams. Having read so much about the decline in viewership of network news; let me offer you my take on why most of it is pure unadulterated tripe. Firstly, the actual content of the thirty minute program is little more than twenty minutes. Almost one third of the time is taken up by ads. 90% of the ads are for pharmaceutical products, many of them for medical problems I am convinced do not exist, like “Restless Leg Syndrome!” Give me a break, just get your ass out of that recliner and take the empty beer cans out to the garbage. That’ll fix it. Next, there is very little world news in the world news. Apart from two minutes on the Iraq situation which is the same old stock footage of US troops we have seen a million times, interspersed with a minute of NBC’s “Pentagon Correspondent.” There is no there, there (apologies to Gertrude Stein.) As far as Africa, South America, Europe, India etc, etc. They only exist the odd time Air Force One touches down on the way to a twenty minute conference in “The Green Zone.” The rest of the news is taken up by the latest medical breakthrough, what body parts Paris Hilton is flaunting this week, the Wall Street report, and at this time of the year, what’s happening on the retail front. No surprise that on a day when another three US troops were killed in Iraq, the President advised the American public to “Go out and get some shopping done!” And no… This is not a political rant… It’s a rant on the state of the news media who have failed in their obligation to bring news to the American people by merely providing a vehicle for advertisers to peddle their products. And don’t let the network hack tell you it’s what their viewers want. If that was true, the hundreds of online news sites, which are growing every day would cease to exist.
Wal-Mart sales are down 0.01%. We'll be back with the details of the outbreak of World War III after these ads!
George, what I think is interesting is how this local-is-global mentality has creeped into local BBC broadcasts as well. Having just spent a week in Blighty I can tell you that the global coverage one used to see is much more local today.
Posted by: Edw3rd | December 22, 2006 9:08 AM | Permalink to Comment