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The Iranian Crisis: The Cable News Networks...

S

Studio20

CNN has been on this ad nauseum for 10 days....FOX News seems to be picking up the pace...As of 12:07 AM, MSNBC is airing another rerun of "Sex Slaves In America."

Are CNN and FOX overdoing it, and MSNBC just working it during prime time, or is this that big of an internatonal issue which would mean MSNBC has missed the boat....again?

Or is N.U.T.S. (Nbc Universal Television Services) just too cheap to staff overnight?
 
Fox's coverage of this has been Amazing. That is how you become #1.
 
Win or lose for the protesters, what we're seeing in Iran is history in the making on-par with Tienanmen Square. I usually do not advocate cable news channels driving stories into the ground, but this time they have been spot-on. MSNBC...lol. Stick a fork in them.
 
CNN has been leaving "BREAKING NEWS" up for days now. I've lost a lot of respect for them. That phrase used to mean something.
 
Whale said:
CNN has been leaving "BREAKING NEWS" up for days now. I've lost a lot of respect for them. That phrase used to mean something.
Click to expand...

I've lost any respect for the term when Nancy Grace started plastering it all over her show on "HLN." But, thats another topic entirely.
 
I have to say that a few hours after my first post, my opinion has changed regarding CNN. They have been playing over and over again the uncensored footage of 'Neda' getting killed. The news filter has been propped wide open and everything is getting through. I can understand the historical significance but there has got to be some restraint simply out of respect. In the same way that the news networks did not show footage of people jumping out of the WTC on 9/11. I don't even want to relive that moment so I'll just leave it at that. In true cable news fashion, they did the story good justice up to a point, then they hit rock bottom. Shame.
 
Before I give my two cents about the coverage of the Iranian Crisis, let me say I wish only the best for those people in Iran who are getting the hell beat out of them by the thugs that run that country just because they wanted to see a fair election. Too many people in this country take democracy for granted.

Now for TV coverage. I don't bother to watch any of the cable networks because they repeat the same footage numerous times each hour. I understand there is a media blackout imposed in Iran, but there was also one imposed in China back in 1989 and the news coverage was much better than today. Again my opinion, but I think there was more professionalism displayed in reporting the news back then, versus the "entertainment" factor involved in news today.
 
Mark_Giardina said:
Before I give my two cents about the coverage of the Iranian Crisis, let me say I wish only the best for those people in Iran who are getting the hell beat out of them by the thugs that run that country just because they wanted to see a fair election. Too many people in this country take democracy for granted.

Now for TV coverage. I don't bother to watch any of the cable networks because they repeat the same footage numerous times each hour. I understand there is a media blackout imposed in Iran, but there was also one imposed in China back in 1989 and the news coverage was much better than today. Again my opinion, but I think there was more professionalism displayed in reporting the news back then, versus the "entertainment" factor involved in news today.
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The constant repetition of taped footage - especially scenes of violence is a pet peeve of mine, but it's not just the cable networks that are doing it - it's a disease that's effected all TV news, including local news...at least where I live. and I think it comes from the now widely accepted feeling that everything visual on TV must always be in motion, and that "talking heads" are too be avoided at all costs. So when there are stories that news progams only have a few bits of footage for, they repeat the footage endlesslly over-and-over like a loop to avoid having nothing but the reporter on camera.

You can probably trace this back to the "MTV" era, and shows like Miami Vice that popularized all the fast-cutting. I often wonder what would happen if you could transport a 1960s TV viewer forward in time to watch modern programming. I think that they'd suffer from motion sickness, or at least find it very confusing.
 
kms575 said:
Whale said:
CNN has been leaving "BREAKING NEWS" up for days now. I've lost a lot of respect for them. That phrase used to mean something.
Click to expand...

I've lost any respect for the term when Nancy Grace started plastering it all over her show on "HLN." But, thats another topic entirely.
Click to expand...

Give ESPNews credit - they no longer have a flashing "breaking news" bullet on the bottom right of the screen!
 
Lkeller said:
...it's a disease that's effected all TV news, including local news...at least where I live.
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"If it bleeds, it leads."

Speaking of your market, KGO-TV has been an alleged long-time participant.
The call letters have been said to stand for "kickers, guts and orgasms."

BTW, do they still call the 5pm 'cast Jive At Five? ;)
 
oldiesfan6479 said:
Lkeller said:
...it's a disease that's effected all TV news, including local news...at least where I live.
Click to expand...

"If it bleeds, it leads."

Speaking of your market, KGO-TV has been an alleged long-time participant.
The call letters have been said to stand for "kickers, guts and orgasms."

BTW, do they still call the 5pm 'cast Jive At Five? ;)
Click to expand...

I think that reputation for KGO-TV harkens back to the 1970s and News Scene with (Fred) Van Amburg. Van's most notorious prime-time news teaser was "Severed penis found on railroad tracks. Details at 11:00." But "Van" was let go in the mid 80s. Since then, KGO-TV really cleaned up its act, and these days, its a perfectly respectable news operation.

I was commenting more about the constant repetition of news footage, sometimes violent, sometimes not. For example, after the infamous 2001 Diane Whipple dog mauling case, one of the local stations (KRON, I think) shot a short sequence of the two killer dogs being removed from the building by Animal Control, conscious, but in muzzles and under heavy restraint. They then slowed the footage down, and ran it over and over in slow motion - perhaps hundreds of times during the months the story was active...sometimes twice during the same story. Though the tragic event was sensationalistic by nature (Whipple was mauled to death by the dogs), most of the coverage in the months that followed was about court proceedings, and all they had to show each night were those lame courtroom sketches. So to make the story visually compelling, they would repeat that slo-mo footage of the dogs ad nauseum.

To me, there's nothing wrong with a "talking head" anchor reporting a story without tape, and then talking to a legal expert for analysis, or something. But that's not what TV news programs do these days.
 
The cable news nets still tend to run the same loop of videotape over and over again while talking about a story. They're all guilty of this and, if the tape is short, they'll slow it down. So, that particular practice is more alive than ever and is certainly not limited to KRON's newscast. If anything, perhaps they invented the idea - but the rest sure are running with it.

And, the overuse of BREAKING NEWS is international now.

These international events tend to be covered better by the likes of the BBC and the other non-US media; on the other hand, they can lean rather left on some of the more political stories. For example, I've seen the BBC air reports that totally fluff Hugo Chavez, while leaving out key information that they should have included. However, they sure are doing an awesome job with this story.
 
this thread is now moot, as the cable nets obviously have no interest in covering
anything in the world aside from the death of Michael Jackson
 
No..the thread is not moot. The topic still stands, and as soon as the Jackson story moves on, the question will again be raised...Why MSNBC goes on auto pilot when the others stay on topic?

As an aside, the LA Times posed the very same question in a story on Thursday afternoon...as the "Breaking News" of Michael Jackson being whisked to hospital was unfolding. And the Times was the first media outlet to be on the story and to confirm Mr Jackson's death.
 
The answer is very simple.....MSNBC is not a 24X7 news channel. It devotes a portion of its morning to actual news coverage then joins regularly scheduled programs (you know, real important stuff like prison misbehavior and the like).

If you want immediate news coverage on cable/sat you have to tune to CNNH, or Fox. Even CNN doesn't do realtime 24X7 news any longer.

So many channels......so little news ???
 
whitfm said:
In the same way that the news networks did not show footage of people jumping out of the WTC on 9/11. I don't even want to relive that moment so I'll just leave it at that.
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I don't want to relive it either - but, I do remember such taped footage airing on CNN that afternoon. It didn't air very many times and I haven't seen it aired since then.
 
landtuna said:
The answer is very simple.....MSNBC is not a 24X7 news channel. It devotes a portion of its morning to actual news coverage then joins regularly scheduled programs (you know, real important stuff like prison misbehavior and the like).

If you want immediate news coverage on cable/sat you have to tune to CNNH, or Fox. Even CNN doesn't do realtime 24X7 news any longer.

So many channels......so little news ???
Click to expand...

What's CNNH? Please tell me you're not referring to HLN.
 
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