Holiday-time.. when news dares not intrude.

[SoCalDem]

I can understand why commercial-driven TV series may not want to "waste" air time & money by airing shows that visiting, frolicking people may not bother to watch . (as if, in this day & time, people are unaware of DVRS).

CNN apparently thought that yesterday (Thanksgiving) was Memorial Day/ Veterans Day, combined. Off and on yesterday, I would tune in to see if there were any new developments on the Korea thing, and every time I did, I saw nothing but mawkish rerunning of old-time veterans' personal recollections and the occasional air show footage.

Today, when they are not running minutes-long infomercials for BestBuy, Penneys, Sears, disguised as "shopping reports", they are shwoing the "end of the year" wrap-ups about stories that happened throughout the first decade of the new century.

Apparently John King is the only person at CNN who is actually working today :)

and at MSNBC, Middle-Age Blonde Barbie seemed to be the only one there, until they switched over to their usual "canned You-Tube/All Crime All the Time" format. I wonder..will their standard weekend fare be Thanksgiving at Folsom?..Wrapping presents, prison-style?..

This begs the question...

If you call yourself a "news" station, why does News stop happening when you decide to give a bunch of people the weekend off (with a few extra days added in)?

When you splice together bits & pieces of OLD news, and have a "weekend guy" present them, do they become NEW?


What's the most annoying thing to me, is the fact that while we are "celebrating" that one day..Thanksgiving, our news media has somehow morphed it into a FOUR-DAY news-void. I'm sure the rest of the world still has "stuff" happening. Surely there are feeds available that could be substituted while they all loll around , stuffed full of turkey, or camped out in mall parking lots, on the hunt for a $2 sweater or at $10 tv.

I have managed to catch BBC America a few times yesterday and today, but I would really prefer just the plain old BBC feed or even CNN-I...Cable/Dish subscribers should be able to have access to those venues..

The sickening thing is that we have another whole month before it's "safe" for real news to start happening again:)

[Arctic Dave]

1. Your one and only reason for being on this earth is to consume.

All that other stuff gets in the way of your function.

[sarcasmo]

6. Corporate America loves you're answer Arctic Dave.

[FrenchieCat]

2. I'm kind of glad they aren't reporting any news......

since they make a lot of it up anyways,
this is a nice break.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

3. Real news was happening ? When was that ?

News stations have got to be aware of all the complaints about their lack of meaningful coverage, but have done nothing to change.

[grilled onions]

4. You Won"t Be Safe Until,After Super Bowl Weekend

While I don't have cable/dish any more I remember those dead zones when there was little news outside of fluff reports,sports scores and a blurb of weather. Certainly not enough in any given hour to educate you into what was going on around the world.
However even your food sales papers are dictated by holidays. While I have to watch every penny I count on those weekly ads to decide what to buy. Stores,however have a different idea. They may have their sales paper in the middle of the week or switch to a weekend if a holiday is involved. Also all they seem to feature IS holiday food. Granted a holiday such as Thanksgiving is a great eating holiday but many feel lucky if they have any food on the table. They don't need to see pages of sparkling wines,vintage cheeses,and deli salads. Where are the basic food items? This will go on beyond Christmas with the push on candy canes,sheet cakes,appetizer trays and egg nog. By New Years it's more of the same and that is followed by the gorge of Super Bowl. Meanwhile many are trying a find a buy on soup or oatmeal or whole wheat bread and you just can't find it buried under all the "window dressing" high priced seasonal foods.

[Webster Green]

5. Coolest thing Elvis ever did was to shoot the TeeVee.

I gave mine away. Problem solved.

[Greyhound]

7. The week after Ted sold out to TWAOL they completely dismantled the network.

CNN became the world's premiere news network by having dozens of staffed bureaus and hundreds of stringers everywhere. He was a cheap asshole but he created the 24 hour global news business. Once the corporate parasites and their MBA minions got their hands on it, the first thing they did was to close the bureaus and dump 95% of their reporters. Then they started selling the name he built while merely repeating AP/Reuters stories.

24 hour reporting was replaced by a single 20 minute segment repeated over and over to fill the gaps between commercials. Then came the "pundit" shows with their agenda.

What a fucking shame...

[alp227]

8. Thanksgiving is exclusively American/Canadian, so BBC News doesn't get "disrupted"

and how do you watch the regular BBC One channel? online piracy? super complex satellite feed? And I think that CNN ruined people's Thanksgivings more by being un-current than current. That's what the Internet and foreign media is for when the American media chooses to take holidays too lightly. I'm glad I don't subscribe to cable TV. Happy holidays!

BTW, I wonder how the Canadian media behaved during the Canadian Thanksgiving (which is mid-October).

[SoCalDem]

9. We only get BBC America..occasionally

I WISH, we could access all their programming..

[morningglory]

10. You are wrong! We have news: someone is getting married in the

UK, plus, Tiger Woods had a problem one year ago, so there is all that anniversary coverage. Oh, there is news all right: Obama is failing. The proof is I saw Pat Buchanan on the tv this morning telling us about it. Doesn't he ever get a day off? Too much news for him to be relieved of an appearance.

[woo me with science]

11. Even the fun/holiday programming has turned into a nightmare cartoon version of itself.

Everything is hyperkinetic, giddy, forced and fake cheerfulness.

I remember holiday programming in the 60's and 70's that was geared toward adults. It had very nice music and quality singers, dancers, comedians, and people just talking and sharing the joys of the holiday season.

Now everything is a saccharine, sexed-up, fake smiling elf on speed. I can't even stand to watch.

[Wind Dancer]

12. You've described it perfectly!!!! n/t