So what is everybody watching these days on TV to get their news?

[beachmom]

I started a spirited discussion on how I am disappointed with the new Ed Schultz show on MSNBC:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8360497

But I thought here we could expound on what we like, what we don't like.

Overall, I am a bit of a news snob, and think that Jim Lehrer, if you can stay awake through the broadcast (and that is said as a compliment as it was said on Colbert when Lehrer came on that it is very hard trying to be boring 5 nights a week), is really one of the best places to find out what is going on. But that is over time -- they sometimes take a couple of days to do an in depth segment on a big story broken before. They also allow on hacks from time to time which I think hurt some of their discussions. And there is Brooks and Shields (Shields not being a strenuous enough lib, and Brooks being so full of it half the time). Still, I found them very helpful during the financial crisis, when they blew the rest of the news broadcasts out of the water with explaining what was happening.

I also like BBC America's stellar one hour newsbroadcast. It is more American-centric than the BBC World News Service often shown on PBS.

I would love to say I don't watch MSNBC (so much of it is superficial and silly), but KO and Maddow do sometimes have good segments on serious issues. In general, though, cable is just plain garbage. People watch it and think they know everything, when they know little. With newspapers going away, and people getting so much of their news from cable TV (where they can choose the slant that comforts their egos), I think that is bad for democracy.

My folks still watch the NBC Nightly News. I think the network news broadcasts are too short, and they spend half the broadcast on feel good topics. They are not an option.

Okay, I will admit to watching Morning Joe, simply because he has a lot of good guests on. After watching Joe and Mika on Charlie Rose, I learned that was Joe's idea to grab all of these different guests, and he actually got the idea, loosely, from Imus ..... So I will give Joe credit for bringing on New Yorker writers and other reporters not necessarily always from the "Village".

What television news are you watching?

[ginnyinWI]

1. I'm always interested in improving the quality

of news I consume.

We have a DVR so watch almost all of the following that way and save a lot of time zipping the commercials:

1. The local half hour news followed by CBS. This is all the news my husband is interested in, so we start there. I chose CBS because I love 60 Minutes so much--not particularly because of Couric. Although I'm more suspicious of the other two anchors somehow of being secretly conservatives. That said, CBS in a half hour barely goes further than headlines.

2. That's where Newshour comes in. I can actually see a whole quote and listen to one of the anchors ask really intelligent questions of an appropriate guest so that I can actually learn something. Yes, it can be dry. But if you want to know more about something than a soundbite, Newshour is where you'll get it. Sometimes after the first few minutes of an interview I'll FF the rest because I'm simply not interested in knowing more about a particular subject. Note: I find it easier to absorb later in the evening when things are settled down and I'm in a more relaxed frame of mind. Like after watching something non-political or doing something else.

The only cable news network I'll watch is MSNBC. I go back and forth between Hardball, Countdown, and sometimes Ed Schultz. Any one of them gets really repetitive. Hardball is good if you want the conservative view as well as the liberal rebuttal. (Question: why doesn't Lawrence O'Donnell get a show of his own??) Countdown is good if you want a liberal commentary on the day's events. I usually only watch up to the first half--then it gets silly. So far Ed Schultz does too much yelling for me. But I'm going to give him a few more tries. Rachael Maddow's tone wears me out. I listened to her for years on the radio and I just don't want that much snark. Which leads me to

The Daily Show and Colbert Report. If I want political entertainment these are better than cable news anchors trying to be funny. I especially like the way Colbert lampoons the right. But I don't watch religiously because again it gets repetitive.

I also DVR Frontline, Moyers, and some Sunday shows.

[beachmom]

2. You sound like a kindrid wonky spirit. :)

No BBC America?

Yes to PBS Frontline. But I am not a fan of the Sunday shows.

[ginnyinWI]

4. I used to watch BBC America every night.

I like what's his name, Matt Frei? But not Katty Kay so much. Matt speaks German, a plus in my book. Anyway, I realized that the broadcast mimics network news so much that I only need to watch one of them. Maybe I'll go back to it and dump Katie Couric if I get too tired of her.

The Sunday shows are getting worse and worse! Agree on that point. I almost didn't bother watching last weekend, but then did watch and enjoy the roundtable on MTP. In our area you can get MTP, FTN and TW all at the same time so I had to eliminate one--can only record two at once. I chose Stephy.

[YvonneCa]

3. I watch almost exactly what you...

...are watching...along with C-Span (1,2 and 3) and local KCAL 9...which does an amazing job of covering national politics from the LA perspective (when they are not on a live car chase incident :7 ). I also peek in at Bloomberg for its perspective on financial things.

[ginnyinWI]

5. then there's my husband, the CNBC addict.

He'd be watching Bloomberg too, but we don't get it in our package. He eats his cereal in front of it in the morning.

He tells me that you should never believe any financial news you hear on CNN because they suck at it.

[ginnyinWI]

6. you live in L.A. , Yvonne?

My son is going to move there in June to work for Dreamworks in Glendale. Any tips on where they can find a nice family-friendly neighborhood and rent an apartment that's reasonable? Dreamworks is in north Glendale next to Universal Studios.

[YvonneCa]

7. No. I'm in Temecula in...

...Riverside County. That is SE of the LA area, and....as far as cable TV is concerned...midway between the San Diego and Los Angeles viewing area (so I get LA local TV).

http://www.cityoftemecula.org/temecula/Visitors/


That's exciting news for your son. :) Dreamworks is a big deal. Glendale and Universal are NW from where I live...about a 2 hour drive (unless there is traffic). :7 You must feel sad about him moving so far away. :(


I don't know much about apartments, but...if you come to visit...I have extra rooms. ;)

[ginnyinWI]

8. actually, he's moving closer!

So I'm delighted. He's been in Sydney Australia for the last ten months working for Animal Logic (another studio) and we haven't seen him in all that time (although his wife and our grandson did visit last month). When he gets here in June, it will be ONLY a four hour flight to see him, lol. There are no jobs in the Midwest for animators, so we have to be happy for what we get. Also for a while there it looked like the next job would be in Wellington, New Zealand, almost as far away! Before Sydney they were in Portland, OR.

Looking on Google maps, street views it looks like north Glendale is an ok area. They'll find something if they ask around.

[YvonneCa]

9. That's really good, then. Australia IS a lot...

...farther. :7

[wisteria]

10. I flip the channels for news- local and cable. But, most of my news comes from online searches.

I even catch a tiny bit of Fox once in a while. Sometimes they cover continuing stories the other cable networks don't. I have watched Keith Oberman and Rachael Maddow also, on occasion, but I try and skip Morning Joe- I don't care for the smarmy attitude of Willie Guiest(?). As for the other morning programs, I find myself tuning in to C-Span instead.

[ginnyinWI]

11. ok I gave Ed Schultz another chance

and didn't like it, again. Because all he had was "Cheney is psycho". Well we knew that. "Cheney has an ugly personality" and then later in the show "Cheney has an ugly face". Or words to that effect. Huh? This is good journalism? What it is is sinking to Cheney's level, the playground taunt.

Of course Cheney is evil and also probably unbalanced. But this is not news.

This kind of juvenile "we are good, they are bad" just isn't enough. His radio show has had more content at times. He's going to have to put a little more meat on these bones if he wants to last. He did tone down the yelling a bit.

[Mass]

12. I am not watching TV. There is very little real reporting these days and most of the news programs

fall in the category of " public entertainment" . My issue with Schultz (and to a point Rachel Maddow) is that they want to emulate Rush Limbaugh on the other side. Do we really need to take what is the worse among Republicans? I watched a little bit of CNN and MSNBC yesterday and had to stop. Not only is it biased, but the quality of the "pundits" is so bad.

I watch John Stewart and Colbert. At least, they have no claim of being real news and succeed in doing much better programs than the so called news shows. I watch Bill Moyers, sometimes 60 Minutes and Lehrer. And it is about all.

I generally get my news by reading either newspapers I trust or blogs (generally filtering the sources). I try to get news from different countries, and to read both main sources and alternative sources.

[beachmom]

13. Okay, I have to amend one thing:

I usually turn on Morning Joe when I am working out, and today Joe, Jon Meachum, and Donnie Deutsch sat around justifying torture. I switched over to CSPAN Washington Journal, where they had a woman on who really understood the law, and calmly answered some crazy CSPAN viewers' calls.

MSM is always iffy, I guess.

[ginnyinWI]

14. sounds just like what I would do!

It's a balancing act between cable news which is eye-catching, faster-paced and formulated to keep you watching, and the more staid, slow-paced stuff like PBS and C-span. Like junk food v.s. healthy food. I guess a little of each is okay.

Because you reminded me of how I used to watch BBCA before the election, I'm going to go back to them for a while, so thanks for that! My DH likes BBC too so he won't mind the switch. He watches everything by glancing over the edge of the daily newspaper anyway.

I really need to watch less tv news altogether and get a life. ;)