I just caught 10 seconds of incredible insanity on MSNBC. WTF???

[Cyrano]

Aside from Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Bill Moyers, and "60 Minutes" turn off your TV or it will rot your brain.

I just walked past a TV that was tuned to MSNBC. It was a few minutes past the top of the hour and you would expect that they'd be reporting news. No such luck.

During those 10 seconds, I heard the anchorman asking some woman in the field about the details of Obama bumping his head on the doorway of the helicopter Marine One.

BUMPING HIS HEAD ON THE DOORWAY OF MARINE ONE!!!???

This is top-of-the hour coverage? This is what the media has sunk to? This is news???

America is drowning in a sea of unemployment, debt and wide-spread misery. Yet, Obama bumps his head and this is a "lead story." WTF??? Let me repeat that. WTF???

I guess that two wars, Republicans obstructing a recovery plan, Gitmo, robber barons, and so many other injustices don't provide enough fodder for the "news" industry.

I repeat: WTF???

[NeedleCast]

1. The news shows exactly what people want to see

Gotta change what people want to see if you want to see a change in the news.

[havocmom]

4. Yep

[Lorien]

6. No, it doesn't. The news shows us what they think will keep us distracted

from the real issues. It's in their corporate interests.

[elizfeelinggreat]

7. I agree

I have written to them, I know many people do, and I don't believe it matters at all to them unless you're writing to support the corporate viewpoint.

We need to break up the conglomerates.

[NeedleCast]

12. I think you're wrong

but it's not a huge deal.

Television companies, be they cable or the big networks, spend huge sums of money on focus groups and analyzing ratings to find out EXACTLY what keeps butts in seats...in this case the seat being in front of the TV. Television advertising is also analyzed to the millionth decimal to gear ads towards the largest demographic watching. You don't see a lot of Summer's Eve commercials during football games and you don't see a lot of advertising for pick-up trucks on the Oxygen channel.

Reality TV is popular because it's what people want to see (and it's relativly cheap to produce...a win-win for television and production). You may or may not think American Idol sucks but it has dominated it's time slot since it began.

News programming is the same way. People want excietment and humor in their news. They get a chuckle out of a "news" story about Obama bonking his dome on a helicopter. This entire thread is a case-in-point...that story got some peeps on the left so spun up they had to run to a message board and tell us how terrible the MSM is and I'm sure the righties got a kick out of too, for the opposite reason.

There's news out there if you're concerned about "the real issues" but look around you at work or at the mall or wherever. Chances are, most of those people ARE NOT interested in the real issues...and until we find a way to change that, the "news" will still talk about whatever their statistical analysis shows keeps viewers parked in front of their TVs.

[Cyrano]

15. There was a time when the news was the news.

Using focus groups to find out what kind of news will keep people parked in their seats is so sick as to be insane.

I know that all that counts to corporations in today's world is the bottom line. But they have hijacked a realm that used to belong to people like Walter Cronkite, Huntley and Brinkley, and so many others who were actually journalists. And in those days, the news divisions were not expected to be money-makers for the networks.

We are living in a sick, self-destructive era. Hopefully, it will come to an end in the not-too-distant future. Until it does, we will continue to dwell in a Rush Limbaugh dominated world of propaganda and know-nothingness.

[NeedleCast]

16. Pretty much agree with that

"hard" reporting has pretty much died on televised news. Sports and weather is about all it's good for IMO, although even the MSM do show actual news pretty often. I think there's a lot more "feel good" or "excitement" type stories than there used to be. Cronkite was all about the story and nothing but the story and I miss that sort of reporting, as do a lot of us that want to see hard news with a relativly unbiased slant.

But that's not what the majority wants, and until that changes, the media is going to cater to what those people want to see.

Which is why I say the stories report by the news are exactly what the majority of people want to see.

[karynnj]

18. Very true - but even then this might have been covered

like all of President Ford's little mishaps - which gave an athletic President the reputation of being a klutz.

Can we just say it is because Obama is taller than Bush was?

[Lorien]

17. TV is far less popular than it once was. They are struggling for advertising

dollars-hell, the majority of my friends at ABC have been laid off in the past five years. Most of the people around me ARE interested in the real issues and complain about "crap TV" all the time. They all think that "news" in this country is a joke, and they've stopped paying attention to it. Now granted, I don't know many people with an 85 IQ, but I've never met anyone in the past ten years or so that didn't have anything more than negative reviews for what passes as "news" these days.

As a veteran of the film industry myself, I know that entertainment executives quite often have their heads up their collective asses and have NO CLUE as to what people really want. Many studios have been nearly destroyed because of their poor instincts and lousy data. Sorry, but I think that you are way off base here.

[NeedleCast]

19. Most of the people around you

Most of the people around you - if you surround yourself with people who are like you, as most of us do - are probably (like you) politcally astute and want to see hard news and complain about crap TV.

That doens't mean they're the majority, unfortunatly.

TV (and news) is like the house of representatives. Everyone complains about it but they keep putting the same people back in office, over and over. TV = the same thing. People complain that there's nothing but junk on, but that junk wouldn't be on if no one was watching.

I'm weird about TV. I almost always have my TV on when I'm home, but I actually watch it very little. Unless there is a particular sports game on that I want to see, or one of my two shows is on (House, The Office), I could probably have my TV on for eight hours and not tell you a single program I saw becuase I'm usually banging around on my computer or distracted by something else.

[Lorien]

29. People are watching crap because crap is the only thing offered

not because they LIKE crap and therefore their tastes are being catered to. If you know the power brokers in the entertainment industry personally, then you would see how the system really works. "Focus groups" are just a tiny part of the equation. If ONE program (like Survivor) becomes popular, then EVERY channel works to come up with a knock off to pull in similar numbers. The thing is that 95% of those knockoffs won't be renewed for a second season because they are CRAP. In the entertainment industry (and the news is now a part of that), there is NO original thought because NO ONE wants to take a risk. If a story about Paris Hilton picked up a few viewers, then every news exec is going to scramble to find the next titillating story about a rich blonde celebrity-even if 90% of those stories lose viewers. It's all about covering their asses and cutting down on risk. It really has nothing at all to do with real popularity; it's like oil speculators or anything else these days-it's a gamble they are making, and you are believing in that gamble because it's all that they give you.

[defendandprotect]

22. That's large part r-w propaganda . . . when people are given real news . . .

which alerts them to the reality that politics effects their live every

moment of their lives, then they aren't interested in stories like this.

Anyone on MSNBC talking about Single Payer Health Care -- or the fake and

and costly role of insurance companies in our health system.

Anyone telling the public what the true role of the Federal Reserve Bank is...

the costs to us as a nation?

Anyone mentioning nationalizing the oil industry?

Global Warming --- should be all days discussions on that!

[Lorien]

30. Yep. ANY story can be presented in a way that has people rivited to their

screens. Michael Moore does documentaries on a single topic that have people paying to watch them and sitting still in their seats for two hours, so OF COURSE any news organization could do the same for a five minute piece on any of the topics you mentioned-but they CHOOSE not to because it puts their corporate interests at risk.

[AndyA]

2. CNN is asking the "tough questions" and MSNBC is covering the

"important news America wants to hear."

Fortunate, aren't we? All this technology, and 99% of it is wasted.

[ixion]

3. expect the MSM to be cheering loudly as we drive off the cliff

because, well, they're idiots.

[bdamomma]

5. shut them off !! it's the dumbing down of the American people

which is being thrusted down our throats.

[elizfeelinggreat]

8. I don't watch but don't you think it would benefit our country

if we could somehow change what's being covered?
People who don't know better are being fed this nonsense when they could be better informed.

[defendandprotect]

23. We have been trying to change it for more than 20 years . . . !!!

the thing that will change is using our anti-trust laws to break up the

corporate-monopoly controlling news and the "Fairness Doctrine" ---

and/or our establishing a licensing situation in America whereby we pay

for a free press.

[elizfeelinggreat]

24. Hey, I agree we need change!!!

I do not, however, agree with the poster I responded to who said just shutting them off was the answer.

Didn't you see where I said we had to change things, not ignore them?

I am all for breaking up the corporate-controlled news. Always have been.

ETA: I even posted above, post #7, on breaking up the corporations.

[defendandprotect]

25. "Shutting them off" is a positive change . . .

Advertisers recognizing how many have already done so seem to be dropping out.

Glad you agree with the rest!

[elizfeelinggreat]

27. Oh, that's what you were trying to say

Glad you agree also.

[Political Heretic]

9. It's simply what happens with a 24/7 "news" channel.

Not really something to lose one's shit over. :)

[Demit]

13. Yup. They basically took the hour's worth of nightly news we used to get and stretched it out.

If anyone thinks they are getting more news now they're nuts. Just think, they could have...look at the LBN here—the number of stories posted in the span of a day, from around the world. Look at the stories the BBC covers from around the world—it puts us to shame. Anyone who keeps MSNBC, or any of them, on all day thinking they are getting a wide scope of news, or news as it happens, are seriously misguided.

[liberalmuse]

10. Jesus H.

That's why I had to turn off the MSM except for Keith and Rachel. I can't even handle Matthews these days (or most days for that matter). Good lord.

[Sequoia]

11. Meanwhile death toll in Australia now at 176.

Entire towns burnt to the ground with charred bodies on the ground and in crashed cars, not to mention families in homes.

[defendandprotect]

26. Obama should mention this . . . somewhere along the line . . .

as he should constantly mention other issues such as decades of HOMELESSNESS

and impoverished children in America ---

and please tell me he's going to get to RE-REGULATING capitalism --- otherwise,

he's leaving taxpayers open to yet more bailouts of capitalism!!!

He should keep repeating that!!!

[RamboLiberal]

14. Probably afraid the righties will accuse them of bias if they

don't report Obama bumped his head. I actually heard righties b*tching last week that MSM wasn't reporting Obama's physical goofs like trying to open a window instead of a door to the oval office like they reported Bush's goofs like the door he couldn't open in China.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

21. I think you are correct.

They need to prove Obama is as dumb as shit-head.

Not that it matters, but it didn't even look like a bump to me. When he made contact his reflex was pretty fast to duck and go around. More like a swipe - I guess that's what you do when your brain isn't atrophied from 40 years of Jim Beam abuse.

[K Gardner]

20. CNN Banner Headline: EARMARKS AND PORK - DEVELOPING STORY ! They put this

up immediately after the town hall where Obama said emphatically, "there is not one earmark in this bill" - I turned it off.

[madamesilverspurs]

28. You ask the same question I ask

whenever sports dominate the "top" of the news. With no apologies to sports fans, there are simply more important things. How idiotic is it that we have to have replays of effing commercials from the Super Bowl? And that Congress wasted our time and our money investigating steroid use in baseball?

We're going broke, we can't find jobs, we are losing our homes, we're dying without adequate health care -- and we're supposed to find the energy to care that yet another overpaid ball playing prima dona used steroids? Fuck that.