People who complain about Katie and CBS don't know jack about tv news

[Herman Munster]

It's a business. What ever made you think the news was about informing you? The news is about fucking ratings and tv. The CBS evening news was in 3rd place for over a decade and wasn't making enough money with hard news, so they are making a business decision with Katie and hoping the stupid people will watch Katie and her skirt shaking her thighs reading bullshit.

Watch this clip and get an education. It's 30 years old but true as ever today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZiPM5ekpC0

[MichiganVote]

1. Loved that movie!

[valerief]

2. Me, too. It's so spot on. n/t

[UndertheOcean]

11. Whats that movie called ?

n/t

[MichiganVote]

14. Network

[question everything]

3. Why even bother?

I was watching Bob Scheiffer for most of the past year but moved to ABC once Charlie Gibson took over, hoping that they'd had enough of their religion stories.

This evening, with ABC ready to show a 9/11 "documentary" I just switched to NBC and Bryan Williams.

I am not interested in watching Couric pretending to deliver the news. I do not watch American Idol and any of the Reality shows; I don't watch anything on Faux news, so why bother with the Katie Couric show?

[Sapere aude]

4. There was a time when news was there to inform you. News depts

were not considered money makers back then. Those were the days of Walter Winchell, Ed Morrow, David Brinkley, Chet Huntley, Walter Cronkite.

[Junkdrawer]

9. That was when a broadcast licensees had to prove...

that they were using the public airwaves in the public interest.

IIRC, Reagan did away with that.

[valerief]

5. It's not just a business. It's a tool of the military-industrial complex

to deliver propaganda to control the masses. Feed them the right content, and they'll enlist to fight your wars. It's not just about buying SUVs.

[WinkyDink]

6. Well, ALL television programming exists solely to advertise wares.

But the news shows WERE more serious and informative within my lifetime.

[AZBlue]

7. Some people are miserable unless they have something to bitch about.

And a good number of them hang out on DU. I try to ignore them, but it was a bit absurd yesterday when about 50% of the threads were griping about Katie Couric. I mean, come on people, ever heard of AIDS? Iraq? Cancer? Poverty? Low education scores in the US? Tax cuts for the rich while the middle class falls further and further behind? Unemployment? The 46.6 million Americans without healthcare? YOU WANT SOMETHING TO BITCH ABOUT?? BITCH ABOUT SOMETHING OF IMPORTANCE!!

:rant:

Oh my. Excuse me. I got carried away there for a moment...

Anyway, thank you Herman for your words of sanity and clarity. Much needed! Kudos!!

[niallmac]

13. But you see Katie is just another shill that 'could' have bitched for us.

Just another chance for the peoples voice to resonate smothered by another ass kissing
corporate whore. I'm going to guess that is one reason we are all so BS about cute little Katie.
I don't have a nationally syndicated podium to rant from.

[AZBlue]

17. The odd thing about this is that the freepers are all up in arms too.

They call her a Democratic mouthpiece.

Poor Katie - can't please anyone it seems.

[leeroysphitz]

18. But that is not, never was and never will be her job.

Sorry but facts is facts. Since her start on TV Couric's job has been to get ratings. That's it. End of story. PERIOD.

To think otherwise is to deny reality. Some people on the radio and on television have a VOCATION or even a CALLING. You may find such people on alternative media sources from time to time and rightly expect them to "speak out". Couric doesn't have a vocation she has a career. A career based solely on ratings.

Why complain about somebody doing the only thing you would ever expect them to do? Especially when he or she never said they meant to do otherwise?

If you need something that still resembles unbiased news look to the CBC's "The National" nightly news program or maybe The Fifth Estate. Try some BBC or alternative information sources but don't act surprised and somehow outraged if you get bias and fluff from a network "news" program. That's all they are there for now.

Sorry. Had to let that one out.
EOR.

[niallmac]

28. and is not CBC like BBC state sponsored?

To me that is the big joke. All our hoopla about democracy and capitalism
and free speech when the fact is commercial non state run media is
terribly constrained. BBC, state sponsored news is intelligent and far
superior to our media that panders to whatever is the fad of the masses.
Katies job is to entertain. My job is to bitch about the abuse of my air waves
for the interests of the moneyed elite.

[UndertheOcean]

8. I think the BBC model must be emulated here .it does work.

Once the Media institution is not forced to chase ratings to make money .. more independence will follow.

[leeroysphitz]

20. Unless they are like PBS and NPR

and must appease partisan screwballs in Washington in order to maintain funding.

:(

[karlrschneider]

10. I'm Mad as Hell and I'm not going to take it any more!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dib2-HBsF08&mode=related&search=

[derby378]

12. Since WHEN has news been ENTERTAINMENT?

To which some would answer, "Since it was invented?"

We have a right to demand better. Where are the modern-day Edward R. Murrows and Walter Cronkites? We have Olbermann, sure, but he's a counterbalance to O'Reilly, not an evening news anchor.

[NEDem]

15. I hasn't always been entertainment.

Historically news has been a money loser for all networks and stations. Once the corporate takeover of media outlets began they decided that news shold be profitable and hence the entertainment factor.

[Joe Bacon]

16. I wouldn't watch Couric even if she went braless and did a pole dance

Why do I have a feeling Completely Bull Shit would try to do that for ratings?

[Pastiche423]

23. Bad visual image! Bad visual image! Bad visual image!

Why'd you do that?

[tabasco]

19. "News" companies are now owned by corps. that sell weapons to the govt.

That is the moneymaking side of the operation, not the news dept.

[Berry Cool]

21. Then I guess Keith Olbermann doesn't know jack about TV news

because he's been quite a vocal complainer.

[Herman Munster]

22. Olberman isn't TV news

he's entertainment

[Avalux]

24. Wrong.

Olbermann is TV news, disguised as entertainment. Katie's new gig is entertainment, disguised as TV news.

[Sydnie]

25. Spot on sparosnare

I think you hit the nail with that swing.

[Avalux]

27. thanks!

:toast:

[high density]

26. At least Howard Beale had something to say

and he was amusing... I don't know what Katie Couric brings to the table. She's not a "hottie," she's not entertaining, and she's worthless at news.

[Vinnie From Indy]

29. The OP's argument is nonsense.

Of course tv news is a business and I have never read or heard anyone advocate otherwise. Your statement is a straw man argument. The real meat of this issue is that TV news, and almost all other news reporting in America, has been allowed to consolidate to such an extent that only a handful of gargantuan corporations control 80% or so of what Americans get as news. That fact coupled with the broad financial interests of the corporations that own the networks has made TV news much more valuable as a propaganda launching platform and filtering agent than anything else. It certainly explains the unprecedented events of the BushCo era in America and I fear it could get even worse.

In conclusion, the old argument that it is SOLELY ratings that drive the network news departments is false. It is not true. There are certainly other formulas for ascertaining profitability that take into account using tv news to push propaganda and protect political assets.

Katie is just another focus group tested asset being put into the lineup to continue the wholesale lying to the American public that has defined the news business over the last few years.

on edit:

There is a difference between just serving up stories that capture the imagination or viewership and lying to the American public. The networks are much more about the latter in today's America because of the consolidation of the business. BushCo's strategy is no secret. They have been running a "quid pro quo" government for industry. The bar is open at the White House and corporate America are the only patrons allowed.

[Jcrowley]

30. You are mostly right

Look at what a former New York Times Journalist John Swinton was saying about journalism all the way back in 1880 in free America:

“I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.”

“The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?”

“We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”

It's also about maintaining an unhealthy amout of mental distractions and framing the range of opinion. In the mediated existence if you didn't hear about in the "News" it didn't happen no matter how real and consequential that event may have been. Fortunately there are cracks opening in the facade at this point in history.