March 9, 2007

Katie Couric - Still Useless After All These Years

After taking a poorly rated newscast that was a dim shadow of its former self, and installing a new anchor that offered little but a cute face, CBS has solidified its last-place position in the evening news. Worse yet, since Katie Couric took the helm, CBS's evening newscast has fallen further behind, with no end in sight for the drop. Now, a change in producers is underway with Rick Kaplan taking over as producer.

My mother-in-law watches Couric regularly, to which I remark, "So you're the one." Face it. Nobody wants Katie Couric in the anchor chair except CBS, and they aren't going to stay loyal for long. Ratings are key in the TV industry. The two most important timeslots for ratings are the 8-10 prime-time and the news. In local TV, the nightly news is the gravy-train for advertising revenue. On the network level, much is the same. More can be charged for advertising during the evening news, because the viewers that are watching are watching intently. That only goes so far, though, as you actually have to have loyal viewership in order to continue charging those high rates.

Katie Couric, a true star in the fluffy morning-show format, simply isn't seen as a trustable source for the news by a vast majority of America, and for good reason. Cute sells beer and cellphones, not information. When the information given reeks of bias, and offers little in the way of quality, people will turn elsewhere for it. Right now, the news industry is suffering from abandonment. The public is turning to the Internet, where they can read more about any given story, and select the stories they're interested in reading. Cable news, though not available in every home, is chipping away more and more at the audience of the broadcast networks. With CBS focusing more on style than substance, it's no wonder viewers are going away.

Couric's term at CBS began with high ratings, as viewers came in droves to see what was new. They quickly discovered that the newness had to do with style and quality. For everything CBS gained in style, they lost as much in quality, and it showed. Kaplan's job should be to bring in the quality, but his track record in this area is spotty, at best.

I'm still waiting for Fox to bring the Fox Report with Shepherd Smith to its affliliates, and steal away a major chunk of the news audience from all three broadcast networks. It wouldn't be hard, and they could do it with little investment. Smith offers better substance, better style, and a more engaging news-hour than any of the major three networks are offering. What's more, he does it with less bias in the news than any of the other major networks, broadcast or cable.

Hey, CBS. Want to get better ratings in your news? Fire Couric, and hire a real newsman for the job. Like it or not, viewers don't want a woman giving them the news, unless it is a woman who can be trusted to tell the news "the way it is." That's why Connie Chung failed, and it's why Couric is failing.

Like it or not, that's the way it is.

Posted by Lockjaw at 8:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 28, 2005

Thoughts on the Thanksgiving Parade "News"

Being Thanksgiving weekend, the news was a bit slow in US politics. The big story seemed to be that Matt and Katie failed to report the news that the M&Ms balloon was involved in an accident that resulted in two injuries. The big question of the weekend was whether Matt and Katie, as representatives of the "news" division of NBC, should have broken away from coverage and told the story of the accident.

Lot of folks believe that they SHOULD have broken away for the news. The general argument is that as members of the "news" team, they had a responsibility to cover this as news. I disagree. My main argument is that Matt and Katie are NOT members of the "news" team at NBC. The NBC Today show isn't really a news show at all. It is merely entertainment posing as news. If it were news, then the focus would be on the news of the day. Today focuses on many things, with the news serving as a sidebar. That NBC has the Today Show falling in the News Division is a mistake on the part of the NBC organization.

With that in mind, NBC was right to NOT cover the balloon accident news as news during the broadcast of the parade. The real culprit here is that the modern network news mentality has moved far away from telling the news. Today's network news is a product, sold to a news-consuming audience that craves lightweight coverage. Knowing their market, the big-three networks now focus on fluff, activism, and scare tactics for the flagship broadcasts. The morning shows, aimed at the housewife and retiree crowd, have been dumbed down to not only what the networks believe those audiences can handle, but what the ratings say will sell.

Ratings are a major problem with the network news. Focusing on ratings means taking the focus away from telling the news of the day accurately. To do their jobs properly, they'd have to ignore the ratings. That isn't going to happen.

As for the parade broadcast, I didn't watch it. If I had, I wouldn't have been watching to see breaking news about accidents and injury. I'd have been watching to see actresses lip-syncing christmas tunes as they passed in front of the NBC booth. It's that simple.

Instead, I was watching "Greg the Bunny" on IFC.

Posted by Lockjaw at 8:25 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

August 26, 2005

Debunking the Anti-American Media Lies

Whenever a Republican is in office, and military action is called for, we get a true idea of who in our society is the most anti-American. You can tell who they are, because they'll start spouting anything they hear that could possibly make America look bad, and harm us in our military action. One of the "old standards" of this anti-American group has been criticism of the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities. I'm sure you're familiar with the complaints. They say the detainees are innocent. They say they're tortured. They've even tried to say that our guys have tried to flush the unholy book of Islam down the toilet. If these accusations were true, they'd be pretty bad. Unfortunately, they just don't seem to be true. That doesn't stop the enemies of America, though, home or abroad. They'll still spout the lies.

You want the truth? You can't handle the truth. Rusty Humphries provides some truth, though, along with pictures.

Personally, I love the photo of the very same "squatty potty" that the Koran was flushed down. Whatta hoot!

Posted by Lockjaw at 6:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 5, 2005

Bob Novak Calls Carville for What He IS

So, the blogosphere is active today. Bob Novak reacted to a statement by James Carville by calling is Bull*twinkies*. After doing so, he calmly stood up, removed his microphone, and exited stage left. Over in the "reality-based" side of the blogosphere (and they call it that with a straight face) they're saying he "stormed off" or "went nuts," which is nothing like the truth.

The most beautiful thing about the whole story to me? Bob Novak publicly called James Carville on his vocal output. Was Carville spouting BS? Of course he was. Everything he says is BS. One has to wonder whether Carville really believes that what he says is true, or if he's just a professional BS artist.

I've made up MY mind on that one.

Posted by Lockjaw at 5:54 AM | Comments (25) | TrackBack

May 23, 2005

Virginia Postrel on Journalistic Bias

Over at Dynamist Blog, Virginia Postrel lays out a very good explanation of why the media sometimes gets things wrong.

"Much--though by no means all--journalistic bias lies in reporters' assessments of what's likely to be true. Those assessments are based in part on experience with sources and in part on how the reporter understands the world. What do you believe about political motivations? What do you believe about the way the economy works? What do you believe about the likely behavior of U.S. soldiers in combat, or of business executives, or of the clergy, or of Republicans, or of Jews? What do you believe about human nature in general? About political institutions? About the corrupting influence of money? About the power of ideology? About the relative importance of genetics versus culture, nature versus nurture? About the prevalence or sustainability of discrimination? About the influence of violence on TV? About the effectiveness of conspiracies?"

As a fellow of the North Carolina Institute of Political Leadership, I had access to a fantastic six months of training in the nuts and bolts of politics. One of the most important nuggets of information I gained in the process was in a discussion of the media. A reporter from the News and Observer out of Raleigh, NC spoke to the class. This reporter laid out the number one criterion for deciding what stories to cover.

"We want the story that is important to our next-door neighbor."

This is a good thing to remember. Reporters and editors have to decide what to report based on a lot of things, but if the story doesn't appeal to the guy next door, then who WILL it appeal to? Newspapers are out to make money, and they do that directly, and indirectly, through readership. If the guy next door has the perception that his job may be in danger, then employment issues are what needs to be covered. If the guy next door is a retiree, then Social Security may be the story of the day.

The bottom line? A reporter's perception of his audience is very important in his choice of what to cover, and how to cover it. He perceives this audience by the people he talks to every day. Those people are his co-workers, his friends, his neighbors, and his other associates. Any bias in his reporting may come not only from his own point of view, but also from the points of view of those around him.

If you talk to a reporter, why not tell him what stories would be important to you, instead of how his bias screwed up what could have been a good story?

Posted by Lockjaw at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 16, 2005

Newsweek's Bogus Koran Story

Newsweek reported, as many of you know, that interrogators destroyed a Koran as an interrogation method, eventually flushing it. As a result, riots have been taking place across the muslim world. At least 17 are dead and many more wounded. Now, Newsweek has come out and said that they can't verify that the story was correct.

This morning, Jonothan Alter was on Imus in the Morning. Asked about the sources for the story, Alter stated that a single unnamed source was used for the story. The story was then read to a Pentagon source who did not "wave us off" publication.

Want to know the state of the major media? Journalistic standards have now been reduced to single-sourcing with anonymity. As a second source, the story may be presented to a second person, and as long as they are not personally privvy to information that contradicts the story, it can run.

If, for instance, I was told by a person I do not wish to name that Al Gore was a flaming homosexual who frequented gay bars and had unprotected sex in bath houses, I could write a story for Newsweek about it. Newsweek could then take the story to a minor functionary of the Democratic Party. If that person then said, "I've never seen him at the bath house, but I can't prove it isn't true," then Newsweek could run the story under the same standards they followed for their Koran story.

That doesn't mean the Al Gore story would be true.

This is why journalism students are taught, or at least once were taught, that dual-sourcing is the standard for their profession. Once upon a time, an unnamed source would have to be named to the editor, and possibly another named source be added to the requirements before the story could run.

This is, simply, worse ethics than those followed by certain black-and-white supermarket tabloids. The entire Newsweek organization should be shamed.

Posted by Lockjaw at 7:07 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 22, 2005

Internet News a Future History

I found this last night, just before American Idol, and saved it to post this morning. This movie gives a quick overview of the major turning points of getting the news on the Internet from the inception of the World Wide Web to a decade in the future. Turn up your speakers and give it a look. These sort of speculative future history things aren't necessarily my thing, but this one follows a line that I'd like to see us go down. Food for thought.

Posted by Lockjaw at 1:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Network News? Who Needs Them?

People often complain of bias in the media or other problems. Viewership is down among the big-three network newscasts. Dan Rather is stepping down amid controversy over his handling of a fraudulent story and evidence. There are lots of reasons to question the major network newscasts. I've long since stopped watching them at all. I'd like to explain why you should stop too.

Walter Cronkite was considered "the most trusted man in America." His calm demeanor and effective communication skills allowed generations of newswatchers to see a high quality newscast each evening. I remember being sad when I watched him sign off of his last newscast. Even at my young age, I recognized the end of an era when I saw one.

I just didn't know what era was ending.

Not too many years after Cronkite left, Ted Turner revolutionized the news with the introduction of CNN, the Cable News Network. Instead of waiting for the evening newscast, viewers could catch the latest news of the day at any time, 24 hours a day. With CNN Headline News, which came a little while later, one could effectively get a full national newscast every half hour. The highly competitive three-network news design was slowly turning into a tripartite monopoly, ripe for busting by the free market.

In 1989, Rush Limbaugh debuted his national radio show. Broadcast from New York City, within a month the show was carried on 55 radio stations. The AM Radio band had become a virtual wasteland, due to higher quality audio on the FM band. The music stations on the band were steadily losing listeners, and the news/talk formats primarily dealt with local issues. Limbaugh's show caught on quickly, making the host a national personality.

With The Rush Limbaugh Show giving national news and issues a wide audience, stations began to expand and improve their news and talk offerings. AM radio became, in short order, a major source for news and direct competition for audience with television and newspapers.

When Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to invade Kuwait in 1990, the need for current news coverage became greater. The big-three network newscasts, throughout the Desert Shield/Desert Storm period, broke into regular coverage to give the latest news, but this conflicted with the entertainment side of their business. CNN, with staff on the ground in Kuwait and Bagdad itself, found itself becoming THE place to go for news about the Middle East. Viewers would still turn to ABC, NBC and CBS for their evening recaps, but CNN was the source to turn to during the rest of the day. The day of Cable News had arrived.

During the 1990s, news sources seemed to pop out of the woodwork. More cable networks arrived. The Internet came into prominence with access to newspapers, newswires, and discussion of the topics of the day. More radio stations turned to the news/talk format. More non-news cable networks began offering news segments, and with every step, the big-three network newscasts lost prominence, importance and viewers.

As the Internet matured, news became more readily available. More and more newspapers developed online versions. Television and Radio news departments began to offer their stories online. Sites such as the Drudge Report popped up to point at interesting news on other sides, and even to offer news of their own. The ease with which one can gain access to breaking news has gotten progressively easier as time has passed.

So, where are we today? Now, an engaged news junkie can hear about a breaking story on cable news channels such as CNN or Fox. They can go online and seek out news sources that are local to the news story such as a local newspaper or television station's news department website. Within a couple hours of an event that happens at 11am, one can get all the major developing details from a variety of sources. You can spend an hour reading all about the story from different points of view. You can compare sources, details, and conclusions. Back on Cable, or even through streaming video, you can watch coverage in full moving color. At 6:30 that evening, you can turn the TV over to ABC, CBS or NBC and watch a whopping 15-20 seconds of coverage of the story, and absolutely nothing in the story will be new.

That's the real problem. Now that we have ready access to news, breaking and otherwise, there's just nothing to be gained from watching the evening newscasts on the big-three. Even if they DID have anything new to add, they just don't have the time. With only a half-hour for their newscast, they have to be sparing with their information. When you factor in commercials, weather, sports, consumer news, personal interest stories and entertainment news, there's just not much time left for the real news.

It's not the bias that bothers me. I read, watch, and listen to biased news all the time. I get my news from biased sources all over the political spectrum, from Worldnet Daily to NPR. The main problem is that the big-three newscasts have simply abdicated their roles as valuable news sources. That role, once held by three networks and half a dozen newspapers, is now in the hands of hundreds, even thousands of sources.

Here we sit at the cusp of another major change. With Dan Rather leaving his post as anchor of the CBS Evening News, it's only a matter of time before the other two big anchors go as well. The third era of television news is about to begin. The big question is, will the third era have any value at all?

As I wrap up this post, my email is beeping to announce that I've just received today's edition of The Political Digest, a daily clipping service of political news that I've subscribed to for several years now. Time to read the news.

Posted by Lockjaw at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

News Notes

A little girl cries while on her father's shoulders after getting a taste of modern liberalism in action. The Scotsman has a roundup on the CBS Forged Memo story for those who have been hearing snippets, but want to know more. (Don't forget to buy the T-Shirt.) Hugh Hewitt contrasts CBS with the Tylenol Poisoning incident in an explanation of good and bad ways to defend your brand. An excerpt

"The company immediately alerted consumers across the nation, via the media, not to consume any type of Tylenol product. They told consumers not to resume using the product until the extent of the tampering could be determined. Johnson & Johnson, along with stopping the production and advertising of Tylenol, recalled all Tylenol capsules from the market. The recall included approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol, with a retail value of more than 100 million dollars. (Broom, Center, Cutlip, 381)"

So, my suggestion is this. Don't consume any type of CBS product. Do not resume using any CBS product until the extent of the tampering can be determined. CBS will undoubtedly produce some form of tamper-proof product and package in the future, after which time you may consider their product to be a trusted one again. My other suggestion is to not hold your breath waiting for this to happen.

Look what I just found. The intelligent and beautiful Michelle Malkin has a blog.

A new Gallup Poll shows "Among registered voters, Bush is ahead 52%-44%." The same article points out the "Pew Research Center poll released Thursday shows a tighter contest. The survey, taken Saturday through Tuesday, gives Bush a statistically insignificant lead of 47%-46% among likely voters." Normally, a "likely voter" poll would have more weight than a "registered voter" poll, but in this case the Gallup poll would probably be more accurate, as it is a weekday poll. Weekend polls are known to skew liberal. Of course, the only poll that matters comes in November.

Noted conservative punk rocker Johnny Ramone has passed away. I might have to listen to Blitzkrieg Bop today.

Rance just isn't worth reading anymore. When it was the blog of an unknown Hollywood insider dishing gripes about the system, it was fun. Now that the blogger (some believe him to be Owen Wilson or Ben Affleck) has gotten it all out of his system, he's brought in an "Associate Rance" who manages the posting of essays by readers of the blogs. My take? If you're going to stop posting to a blog, just stop posting. Let the readers start their own blogs. I guess this is proof that Rance really is a major Hollywood actor. His ego won't let him stop being the center of attention, even when he doesn't want to work.

While I'm griping, I'm getting tired of Worldnet Daily and NewsMax slipping advertisements for their own products into their main page as news stories. WND has an ad for a book posing as an above the logo top story. It's annoying, and I wish they'd cut it out. At least I don't have to put up with NewsMax's pop-up ads, since I run Opera instead of IE.

The Media Research Center is a great place to get analysis of bias in reporting. Here's the latest cyberalert.

Finally, since I haven't been called a Nazi by a nitwit lately, I'll just point out that communism is evil.

Posted by Lockjaw at 11:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The News

A classic post from Lockjaw's Xanga Page

I love the news. I'm a serious news junkie. In the morning, I turn on Fox News Channel, watch Fox and Friends, and start reading the news on the web. My standard routine includes trips to a variety of news sites, including The Drudge Report, Worldnet Daily, NewsMax, Slashdot, The Wall Street Journal Opinion Page, The News and Observer, WRAL TV5, Town Hall, and Google News. I also check a few non-Xanga blogs such as Marginal Revolution, The Volokh Conspiracy, Rance, Dave Barry's Blog, Geek Press, Is That Legal?, Jihad Watch, The Right Coast, and of course, the daily show briefings of The Neal Boortz Show.

I read the local newspaper, on average, twice a week. Once is Wednesday, when the free copy goes out to all households, and the other is Friday, when the Yard Sale listings are in the classifieds. I no longer bother to purchase the regional paper, The News and Observer. Although I used to watch hours of CNN at a time, I rarely turn them on for more than minutes, these days. Long gone from my news consumption routine are the local and network TV news.

TV news has become the bottom of the news barrel. Depending on the channel, the local news shows provide either one half or one full hour of news from the local station, followed by a half hour of national network news. If I decide to invest the hour and a half of time to watch one of the most popular station's news in one evening, I'll come away with around 15 minutes of useful information.

Let's start with the local news. They'll lead off with major stories each evening. There are usually 1-3 of these. If there's one, it's usually something worthy of leading off the show. If there's three, one of them is a throwaway. Going into the first commercial break, there will be a tease for some interesting story that will be later in the show. For the rest of the show, there will be 2-3 useful stories, each of which will be given approximately 10-15 seconds of news time, which is enough time to tell you absolutely NOTHING about the story.

The rest of the local news will be filled with stories about bake sales, cute dogs, "on your side" stories about how the station helped a homeowner get their house repaired after some contractor messed it up, shopping tips, advocacy stories, and national news. As horrid as the rest of it is, the national news during a local news show really irks me. As soon as the show is over, I'm going to be getting a national news show. Don't waste my time during local news with national stories. You don't need Washington correspondents, stories from California or man-bites dog stories from Tuscon. Oh, and unless you're talking about the 82nd Airborne, or another unit from central North Carolina, I don't give a crap about any story your correspondent in Bagdad is telling.

Local News should be Local. Local News should be NEWS. I've found that I can get all the local news that's worth reading in 5 minutes by simply visiting the websites of WRAL TV5 and The News and Observer. On each site, I read 2-3 stories and the politics columns of the N&O, and I'm done. It isn't that I don't WANT more local news, it's just that I can suck all the good out of what they offer in that amount of time. Instead of an hour and a half, I get the local news in 5 minutes. That's a sad commentary on what they offer.

Oh yeah, that story they're going to tell you later in the show that's so interesting they're going to drag you through the whole show to get there? It's probably a few pictures from space, newly released from NASA. They'll show 2-5 pictures, and in the amount of time they've wasted getting you there, you could have gone to the NASA website, and viewed the whole collection of 12-100 pictures at much higher resolution.

National network news is no better. They've got 30 minutes to give me all the important national news. What do I get? I get 8-10 seconds of attention for each of 2-3 leadoff stories, and up to 30 seconds on one major lead story. This paragraph contains as much information as you can get in 8-10 seconds, to this point. The 30 seconds of attention they give to one of the lead stories is enough time to give a completely misleading picture of what happened, and not nearly enough time to get at any real truth.

Further into the show, we get news based on the latest press releases from liberal advocacy groups who want us to believe that the environment is being destroyed. We get stories that cause fear and loathing. There'll be one story on why the economy is causing trouble for someone. If the economy is bad, it'll be someone out of work. If the economy is good, it'll be someone who is in some odd situation that keeps them out of work. There will be quotes from the latest press release of some advocacy group or two, and it will cause fear and loathing. There may be another long-format story, probably of the "Is our children learning" genre.

This being the national news half-hour, there will likely be a variety of stories that are actually local news, but from around America. There's the murder is California, the weather in Oklahoma (did you know they had tornadoes there?), the homeless problem is New York (during Republican administrations only), and a street festival somewhere in flyover country. There'll be coverage of a 12 person protest against conservatism that's shot in closeup to make it look big, or of a 100 person protest against liberalism that's shot from afar to make it look small.

What do I blame for the horrible quality of television news? I blame women. TV news used to be made up of what we call "hard news." As such, it was primarily the viewing domain of men. Sure, women watched, but it was men who made up the primary audience. The problem was, men watched the news, but women did the shopping. Advertisers knew that the news hour allowed them to reach more sets of eyes, but it wasn't necessarily the eyes that spent the money in the grocery stores. The news shows had to do something to get more women to watch the news, to make the advertisers happier.

Television people only really know one answer to the problem of how to get women to watch. That answer is stupidity and emotionalism. Look at what the TV for women channels concentrate on for their audience. They choose mindless entertainment and heartstring-tugging dramas to attract women, apparently in the belief that anything too challenging is above their heads. The news people chose the same tactics. That's why we have the cute dog stories, the advocacy-fear stories, the shopping tips, the recipes, and the movie reviews. Hard news, they think, is too much for a woman, so they water everything down. It's horrible for people who like the news, and it's really insulting to women.

If I were in charge of a local TV newscast, I'd do things differently. Of course, I'd be fired immediately. First, I'd lead off with the most important 3 stories. There would be a 5 second introduction for each of the stories, followed by a one-minute weather segment and a 30 second sports segment. After the first commercial break, I'd have in-depth coverage of 30 seconds to a minute for each of the three lead stories. After that, I'd have the secondary news stories until the second commercial break. After that break, there would be one and a half minutes each for weather and sports. The rest of the show would be 1-3 in-depth stories from the investigative teams, and I'd lead out with a cute or uplifting quickie. In one half-hour, I'd cover the local news better than any of the hour-long shows do now. If they want to have insulting girlie-news, they can do it for another half-hour before my show starts.

That's my rant on news.

Posted by Lockjaw at 11:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack