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ABC News – Cutting Workforce 20% – Suprising No One
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Fairness Doctrine, multiple ownership rules, public service requirements…..
I can take about 95% of what I learned in Broadcast Law (in the late 70’s) and throw it right out the window.
Check out “The Death and Life of American Journalism” by Bob McChesney and John Nichols. If you’re one of those that just gets your news from Fox you probably won’t care for it – but for the rest of us it’s an interesting read.
Mark Landman
PM Productions
Champaign, IL -
[Mark Landman] “If you’re one of those that just gets your news from Fox “
That’s an impossibility. I think we’re all in agreement that the stuff they serve up isn’t news.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[Ron Lindeboom] “According to the movie MEN IN BLACK, that honor belongs to The Enquirer.”
Yeah, but that was way back in the nineties. However, it still chilling if you really think about it…
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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[David Roth Weiss] “That’s an impossibility. I think we’re all in agreement that the stuff they serve up isn’t news.”
I would grant that dubious honor as a shared one held equally by all major news organizations today. I gave up on MSNBC long ago as they were every bit as slanted as FOX. CNN spends so much time on Hollywood’s goings-on that I also gave up on them.
Networks? They are every bit as ineffective.
I tend to grab my news on the Net today, and try to sort through the biases and slants to try to find the real story in it all. That takes digging.
Today, if you want real news, you have to treat the Net as a wire service — and you are the news director pulling the stories, along with the trusted anchors, etc., who are also you.
Welcome to the brave new world.
Gone are the days when you got news from any of the news organizations.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
CEO, CreativeCOW.netCreativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint ExupéryFirst they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
– GandhiBetter is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with the poor spirits who neither enjoy much, nor suffer much because they live in a gray twilight that knows no victory or defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt
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Just wanted to jump in on the infotainment thread…
At the risk of sounding a bit like your grandfather who walked twenty miles to school uphill both ways every day and liked it, I can’t stomach watching television “news” anymore unless it’s the subject of satire or ridicule.
There are few things worse than being subjected to some chirpy bimbo (or “himbo”) blathering on about Very Big Important Scary Things (prescreened and selected for your viewing pleasure by the Very Big Parent Corporation of whichever news network you happen to be watching), puff pieces about kittens, salacious sex scandals or “reality” TV stars.
I highly recommend Charlie Brooker’s BBC series Newswipe, which you can find on YouTube. I haven’t had such a good laugh in years. He has a truly masterful command of the medium and an insider’s view of the machine.
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[Ron Lindeboom] “I tend to grab my news on the Net today, and try to sort through the biases and slants to try to find the real story in it all.”
Personally, I’m becoming much more insular these days. I pay little attention to the so called “news.” I get the information that’s relevant to my life right here on The Cow and in a few other places. Increasingly, the things going on in the world at large seems to have little to do with my life. Am I just getting old?
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los AngelesPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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It seems that if I want to get a reasonably unbiased view of the actual news (I don’t give a rat’s behind about Tiger Woods) going on in this country I need to get it from the BBC.
Mark Landman
PM Productions
Champaign, IL -
[David Roth Weiss] “Personally, I’m becoming much more insular these days. I pay little attention to the so called “news.” I get the information that’s relevant to my life right here on The Cow and in a few other places. Increasingly, the things going on in the world at large seems to have little to do with my life. Am I just getting old? “
No, it’s not that you’re getting old, it’s that mass media is devolving at breakneck speed. I’m only in my 30s and I feel the same way. I haven’t even owned a television in 10 years (rather odd for someone who works in video) and I don’t feel like I’m missing anything.
The Internet allows us to be much more selective about what we read and watch, and it’s a far more interactive medium than TV. There is potential in that to be both positive and negative, as most people have a tendency to seek out and limit themselves to content that maintains consonance with their own world view and opinions. Extreme insularity within a self-validating feedback loop brings with it the danger of rational discourse disappearing altogether, as every issue is reduced to a shouting match between binary opposing viewpoints whose proponents aren’t interested in engaging in any kind of a dialogue and seek only to drown out and negate the opposing opinion. That seems to be a pretty accurate description of the state of American politics these days. Or perhaps it’s only because popular mass media intentionally highlights, sensationalizes and magnifies extreme opposing viewpoints and thrives on conflict rather than on reasoned argument, rational discourse and finding common ground.
I think it remains extremely important to actually leave the house and interact with human beings face to face on a daily basis for a healthy dose of perspective. As much as technology is shrinking the size of the world, I think it’s also creating more barriers for genuine human interaction. Tweeting, text messaging, emailing and “friending” people on Facebook is not a substitute for interacting with other human beings in the flesh.
Having said that, I greatly value the Internet as an educational resource, the Cow being a fantastic example. The trick is in maintaining a balance and using technological tools for self-improvement and for good rather than becoming a slave to the tools themselves.
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“Today, if you want real news, you have to treat the Net as a wire service — and you are the news director pulling the stories, along with the trusted anchors, etc., who are also you…”
How true.
With the internet, we now have the equivelent of thousands of wire services and our own personal feed rooms pumping soundbites, images and words at us faster than we can fully comprehend them. We used to depend on trusted gatekeepers to help us make sense of all that, and to break it down into bite-sized chunks that we could digest.
Now, that gate is falling open. The kids are running the candy store. The pimps, thieves, pundits, politicians and paid consultants are gnawing on the rotting carcass of journalism and we are most definately on our own.
Welcome to the new world disorder.
J Cummings
Cameralogic/Chicago
cameralogic.tv
HDX-900/HDW-730S/DXC-D50 -
Yesterday I watched two snippets of broadcast news and now I remember why I don’t watch broadcast news.
1. A CNN “reporter/commentator” was interviewing Jack Hannah about the tragedy at Sea World in Orlando and she would not rest until she got Jack to say something bad about the whale. But our old pal Jack Hannah actually criticized the media and would not take the bait.
2. The live coverage of the Healthcare Summit at the White House. The MSNBC coverage consisted of a few minutes of actual live coverage, followed by commentary with the Washington insiders, pretty much making for an unwatchable program.
A newish thing we are seeing was also featured.
For example, Chris Dodd says, “Mr President, I think the real problem we have here is that there are not enough apples and oranges available for the poor. We need more fruit subsidies.” (he did not really say that)
Then immediately the video goes into a picture in picture and another graphic flies in with text that reads
•Dodd: Not enough fruit
•Obama Prefers Doritos, sourceMeanwhile the ticker is running at the bottom – they have stopped the continuous ticker – they now fade out the headline before it finishes its journey, and they fade in another one. And you have stock updates top right and lots of logos around the edges, so the content only takes up 30% of the screen. That’s why tv’s are getting so big, to make room for all the graphics.
So in summary, TV news is dying. I dare not watch my local news because the weather report is always wrong and the local reporting is pretty poor.
Mike
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