“A sluttily dressed train wreck!” a man shouted from
my TV.
I thought I’d turned to the wrong station, but
MSNBC’s logo flashed at me from the bottom-right corner.
Confused, I put down the remote. I then watched as Joe
Scarborough of “Scarborough Country” grilled a
specially assembled panel on Britney Spears’ supposed breast
implants, her decision to pose nude while pregnant, and why in the
world 12-year-old boys like to watch her dance half naked.
After this stimulating discussion, the feud between Star Jones
and Barbara Walters was analyzed, and the show ended with a picture
of the winner of the World’s Ugliest Dog Contest.
Worse yet, Scarborough is a former congressman. No wonder
Congress never does anything productive.
Aside from a brief breaking-news update on terrorism and a short
conversation with a man investigating Jiffy Lube, I felt as if I
had just watched a poor episode of Entertainment Tonight. What is
the news coming to? I decided to embark upon a quest to find
out.
For the next two days I sat through over eight hours of news
broadcasts. I became intimately familiar with every host on MSNBC,
CNN and FOX. I greeted them by name before they could introduce
themselves, perfectly mimicked their annoyingly fake bursts of
laughter, and began to shout responses to their rhetorical
questions at the screen.
During my two-day hiatus from sanity, I was surprised by what I
learned. Instead of finding that the overall quality of news shows
had decreased, I found that they become more frivolous as the day
progresses.
Before 5 p.m., all three stations had news updates that tended
to be more sophisticated and discussions that were more balanced.
After 5 p.m., however, when the numbers of viewers presumably
increased, the talking heads began discussing increasingly
ridiculous subject matter in increasingly petty fashions.
For instance, on one particular day at 4 p.m., both FOX and CNN
were covering an array of issues ranging from the planned terrorist
attack on New York to negotiations with North Korea.
By 6 p.m., however, on FOX’s “Hannity and
Colmes,” Sean Hannity was busy agreeing with another panelist
that The New York Times was aiding terrorism. Meanwhile CNN’s
Nancy Grace wondered if Ken Lay had requested to be cremated
because he actually faked his own death and has escaped to the
Bahamas.
After each news-watching marathon, I picked up a newspaper and
reviewed the headlines to see what differences there were between
what the two mediums had reported. Many of the major articles
featured in the newspaper ““ such as a story revealing that
Jack Abramoff, a former lobbyist who pleaded guilty to three
felonies, paid even more visits to the White House ““ had
never been mentioned on the cable news shows while I watched
them.
It is a given that newspapers provide more in-depth information
and analysis than television news broadcasts. Papers have the space
to write down all the little details, but live reporters only have
a small window of time to summarize the details.
But on hectic days when we’re busy cooking dinner, doing
homework or spacing out, cable news shows can be a convenient way
to stay abreast of current events without having to drop everything
to sit down and delve into a newspaper.
As I discussed this topic with a friend, he suggested I try to
find out if cable news shows had once been different. To accomplish
this, I called the expert on all things “back in the
day” ““ my 85-year-old grandmother.
“You felt like you trusted Walter Cronkite. I don’t
trust the people on there now,” she explained. She also added
that due to the limited number of channels, news shows had less
airtime, so they consisted mainly of fact reporting and
sophisticated commentary rather than drawn-out discussions or
debates.
I am not at all opposed to making news and politics entertaining
and interesting. On MSNBC, Keith Olbermann’s show
“Countdown” blends major events of the day with
amusing, odd news clips from around the world. As Scarborough
showed, however, the fine line between entertaining and idiotic can
be easily crossed.
I’m feeling a little burned out on television news for the
moment, so for information purposes I will probably stick strictly
to newspapers and early afternoon news shows for at least a few
days.
However, the next time I feel a desire to watch a pathetic,
middle-aged man hurl petty insults at a pop star who made more
money at 13 than he ever will, I know where to turn.
E-mail your submissions for the “World’s
Stupidest News Programs Contest” to Strickland at
kstrickland@media.ucla.edu.