Friday, September 19, 2008

What happens when the money guys takeover.

There used to be news on nightly news shows. The networks had news departments that were dedicated to keeping a certain worldliness and seriousness in the news.

Then the news divisions were turned into money makers for the networks. They have high viewership and they don't cost much to produce.

We are now fighting two wars and are facing what Alan Greenspan has called the biggest economic disruption in 100 years. I just saw a promo for channel 7, ABC's NY station.
They had a blurb about a "talk show host brutally beaten," and "how we helped a pizzaria save a lot of dough. And they made us a channel 7 pizza."

When everything is about money nothing is about integrity.

5 comments:

Tore Claesson said...

well, news used to be somewhat expensive to produce when the networks and the big newspapers had people placed all around the world to gather news. Competing for the best news.
Back then news where more "personal" . To a degree. Then came CNN. And got the position as the news top of the hill. Who knew? I remember as a kid i was really afraidof listening to the news, because the voices where so serious and it was all about bad stuff happening. when the news wher eon i went to the kitchen and walked around iwht fingers in my ears singing to myself in order not block it out. that was like the 7 o'clock news or something.
My dad told me that one day there will be a channel
24 hours devoted to news only. I thought that sounded like the end of the world. if there were so much bad news around to warrant 24/7 the world was truly going to end.

Tore Claesson said...

Talking about news. On my train to Manhattan I sometimes read the Post. Simply to keep up with NY gossip, and to get what the "other' side talk about and how. Today in war like sized headlines they had "news" about a case where a guy kicked a cat to death. Not only are the courts wasting money spending days on such a trial, but that a cat being kicked to death is making the front page is escapism in its worst form. Or does it simply reflect the shallowness of us all? Not that i want cats being tortured, but hey, what;'s next? A front page story of a mountain lion killing a rabbit?
That the US economic foundation has been raped by short sighted month by month results, and is now paying the price for it seems like no news. The race for constant growth in revenue and profit is the worst thing that's ever happened to our economy. It shrinks the benefactor pool, when the whole idea of a society is to provide everybody, and not just a greedy elite. Eat cake, love, and shut up. I'm afraid that in todays' world there's nobody to organize a "French revolution". We're more afraid of the powers than ever. We all live on our knees with cap in hand. We accept gangster and pirates running our lives.

Tore Claesson said...

Talking about news. On my train to Manhattan I sometimes read the Post. Simply to keep up with NY gossip, and to get what the "other' side talk about and how. Today in war like sized headlines they had "news" about a case where a guy kicked a cat to death. Not only are the courts wasting money spending days on such a trial, but that a cat being kicked to death is making the front page is escapism in its worst form. Or does it simply reflect the shallowness of us all? Not that i want cats being tortured, but hey, what;'s next? A front page story of a mountain lion killing a rabbit?
That the US economic foundation has been raped by short sighted month by month results, and is now paying the price for it seems like no news. The race for constant growth in revenue and profit is the worst thing that's ever happened to our economy. It shrinks the benefactor pool, when the whole idea of a society is to provide everybody, and not just a greedy elite. Eat cake, love, and shut up. I'm afraid that in todays' world there's nobody to organize a "French revolution". We're more afraid of the powers than ever. We all live on our knees with cap in hand. We accept gangster and pirates running our lives.

george tannenbaum said...

The point wasn't about the news--it was about pandering to consumers with things like a guy killing a cat to the detriment of information.

I see a parallel in the advertising industry. Pandering to insipid demands and "insights" "gained" from focus-groups regardless of what such pandering does to the quality of the information and/or entertainment you provide to the consumer.

It's about never having a point of view except the view that the only thing that's important is money.

Tore Claesson said...

yep, i got it that it wasn't about the demise of news as such. Dumb gets dumber.