Death to you, CNN
I'm absolutely done with CNN. They've been annoying me for years, and today they finally pushed me over the line. "Outbreak Fears Spread" was their banner for most of the day. The swine flu is coming to get us all. Aren't you panicked? All my friends, family and co-workers are. Oh wait, that's not the case at all. In fact, I don't know a single person with "outbreak fears."
I remember in 2001 when the introduced the permanent ticker. I hate the permanent ticker, mostly because other news agencies felt obligated to follow suit. You're nothing in the news business these days if you don't have a ticker. CNN uses these ridiculous pseudo-headlines ending in question marks like "End of the world coming on Tuesday?" and "Dick Cheney actually a robot?" OK, so maybe Cheney is a robot but whatever.
You need the ticker in case there is some piece of news that's so insanely urgent that you have to get it out there to the public so fast, you don't even have time to get it into the teleprompter so your anchor can read it. Tony Harris is the only anchor more full of himself than Bryant Gumbel. CNN will cover the same news story for 8 hours and still list it as "breaking news" or "new developments." It's beyond sensationalist journalism; it's creating urgency where none exists. It's dumbing down an already dumb American public.
You're in the CNN newsroom. You're in the situation room. It's not just news now, it's a situation. And BAM!, you're in it. Take a look at their screen sometime - it's always got 25 moving elements on it - spinning logos, flashing backgrounds, scrolling tickers, pop-up banners... an epileptic could have a seizure watching it all. And worst of all, there is NO CONTENT of value behind any of it. They haven't reported a real news story since the election.
And who exactly is the jerk at every airport in the country that decided I wanted to listen to this junk for hours on end?! Every time I come home to the Lexington airport Nancy Grace is over dramatizing some poor missing child. That's not news either! Kids go missing every day!
OK, I feel better now.
I remember in 2001 when the introduced the permanent ticker. I hate the permanent ticker, mostly because other news agencies felt obligated to follow suit. You're nothing in the news business these days if you don't have a ticker. CNN uses these ridiculous pseudo-headlines ending in question marks like "End of the world coming on Tuesday?" and "Dick Cheney actually a robot?" OK, so maybe Cheney is a robot but whatever.
You need the ticker in case there is some piece of news that's so insanely urgent that you have to get it out there to the public so fast, you don't even have time to get it into the teleprompter so your anchor can read it. Tony Harris is the only anchor more full of himself than Bryant Gumbel. CNN will cover the same news story for 8 hours and still list it as "breaking news" or "new developments." It's beyond sensationalist journalism; it's creating urgency where none exists. It's dumbing down an already dumb American public.
You're in the CNN newsroom. You're in the situation room. It's not just news now, it's a situation. And BAM!, you're in it. Take a look at their screen sometime - it's always got 25 moving elements on it - spinning logos, flashing backgrounds, scrolling tickers, pop-up banners... an epileptic could have a seizure watching it all. And worst of all, there is NO CONTENT of value behind any of it. They haven't reported a real news story since the election.
And who exactly is the jerk at every airport in the country that decided I wanted to listen to this junk for hours on end?! Every time I come home to the Lexington airport Nancy Grace is over dramatizing some poor missing child. That's not news either! Kids go missing every day!
OK, I feel better now.
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