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MSNBC very tasteless

K

Kenny Atkinson

While FOX is running wall to wall coverage of this deadly shooting in Arizona,CNBC running a special on Facebook on 1/9/11 Sister network MSNBC is running "The confessions of a serial killer." Are you (bleeping) kidding me.

No class what so ever.......
:'(
 
While I believe the NBC cablenets should be on top of breaking news, I will offer some perspective here. They simply are not budgeted to cover breaking news, (especially CNBC), as Fox or CNN. There is really little they can do, except offer half-hour one minute updates, which I assume they did. It is unfortunate, but unless it is a major , "major" story, which frankly this AZ story was not, they will continue with already scheduled programming. I am not defending them, just trying to represent the reality of these cable nets.
 
MSNBC did arrange to have Ed Schultz come in last night to do a special.

Their normal schedue for weekends is to run a lot of wall to wall taped programs.

For them to go with current live news coverage means they have to get on the phone and call in all kinds of people not scheduled on weekends: camera operators, master control/switcher operators and who knows who else.

You may also we wading your way through all kinds of union rules on who gets called and how long they have to give you an answer before you go to the next person on the list.

A TV studio operation is a bit more unwieldy than a two person radio crew.

To call them "tasteless" my be a bit of a tasteless criticism.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
You may also we wading your way through all kinds of union rules on who gets called and how long they have to give you an answer before you go to the next person on the list.
Click to expand...

There's that ugly "U" word again.....

G
 
What a tragedy, for whatever reason why the killer had his intentions, it's just inhuman to follow through with such an attack because of politics! My greatest condolences go to the victims of this shooting :'(


CNN has been doing an awesome job covering the shooting from a very detached viewpoint. MSNBC hasn't been covering much but from constantly checking in on their iPhone app, they are rehashing the story from the AP and Reuters.
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
MSNBC did arrange to have Ed Schultz come in last night to do a special...
Click to expand...

Also, from what I understand, Keith Olbermann did a special edition of "Countdown" on Saturday night. I suppose he probably would have been working for NBC that night anyway, had the network retained him for their "Football Night" crew...
 
searadiofreak said:
unless it is a major , "major" story, which frankly this AZ story was not
Click to expand...
...the assassination of a Federal judge and the maiming of a member of the House of Representatives is not what you call "major." Right. Seeing as eight of my neighbors in this community are DEAD because of this incident, I think most here will understand why the remainder of my response would be best conveyed in punctuation symbols, so furious this has made me...
 
searadiofreak said:
It is unfortunate, but unless it is a major , "major" story, which frankly this AZ story was not, they will continue with already scheduled programming.
Click to expand...

A cold-blooded massacre by a complete whack-job, especially one that includes the murder a federal judge and a congressional aide plus the attempted assassination of a United States Congresswoman, isn't a "major major" story?!?!?!?!?!? Get real! :mad:
 
kenwood101 said:
While FOX is running wall to wall coverage of this deadly shooting in Arizona,CNBC running a special on Facebook on 1/9/11 Sister network MSNBC is running "The confessions of a serial killer." Are you (bleeping) kidding me.

No class what so ever.......
:'(
Click to expand...

I dont know, I guess I can be in the minority but I dont think MSNBC did wrong. The shooting took place on Saturday and they had live coverage Saturday. Sunday was the day after I have no problem with regular programing with updates.
 
KeithE4 said:
searadiofreak said:
It is unfortunate, but unless it is a major , "major" story, which frankly this AZ story was not, they will continue with already scheduled programming.
Click to expand...

A cold-blooded massacre by a complete whack-job, especially one that includes the murder a federal judge and a congressional aide plus the attempted assassination of a United States Congresswoman, isn't a "major major" story?!?!?!?!?!? Get real! :mad:
Click to expand...

Yes, I chose the wrong words there. Of course it is a major story. My reference is 9/11, that is what I meant by using the word "major" twice. But I wasn't clear. As for MSNBC not being live, as others have mentioned I believe it comes down to resources, and unfortunately the cablenets don't seem to use local coverage as much as they used to. That's unfortunate.
 
I saw a reference to the events in Tucson here on the Internet... maybe in a Radio-Info post, so I bounded down the stairs to see what was on TV. I'm talking 4 in the afternoon Eastern Time and the best coverage I found was on... drum roll please..... C-SPAN! They were picking up one of the Arizona TV stations and relaying them live. Now and then they would cut away to join the coverage from California of Pelosi's statement, and then cut away for The President's announcement and a few other little tangets, but then back to the feed from Arizona. I don't the stations out there well enough to remember which one it was, but they were doing a good job.
 
I think the original point was the program they chose to run was about serial killers, on a day when 18 people were shot, not that they were doing pre-taped shows, which I agree, their choice of said pre-taped programming was quite tasteless.

And if I recall, when the story first broke they WERE wall-to-wall with it until at least 4:30 PM, which is when I broke off to go out with my girlfriend. I can't speak to what they did after that, as I wasn't home until around 8:30 PM at which point I turned the channel to watch something different...
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
I don't the stations out there well enough to remember which one it was, but they were doing a good job.
Click to expand...

I think I remember seeing another thread on R-I critiquing the AZ radio and TV stations for their coverage. Personally, I thought it was pretty normal for this type of an event. By that I mean, minimum of initial factual information, lots of speculation and endless repetition.

Even today, more than 24 hours later, Fox 10 in Phoenix expanded their normal 30-minute noon news to 1 hour to rehash mostly what has already been reported. And they did a lot of "non-news" such as how many foreign stations were calling in for information. Anything to fill the hour I imagine.
 
I saw MSNBC had live coverage on saturday afternoon. I saw no reason for them to have live coverage all day sunday too. There was nothing much new to report that couldn't be handled in a top of the hour update.

I do think MSNBC loses out on viewers during breaking news because most know they have limited resources to do breaking news at certain times of the day or week.
 
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