News You Can Lose - What I hate about cable TV journalism. By Jack Shafer

Jack Shafer runs a great article on Salon about how much 24x7 news media sux.

http://slate.msn.com/id/2125683/?GT1=6900


… hate it when the news networks pair music with montages of newsworthy footage. The broadcasters usually avail themselves of this gimmick when they're wrapping up a day or half-day's worth of coverage. If I want emotional cues that music provides, I'll hire a therapist to coach me on when to sniffle and cry.

… hate the use of undated footage, especially when it's two or three days old, that runs as "video wallpaper" as the anchors talk about looting, the breached levee, death, destruction, or what have you. It's TV news if it's live or happened recently or is placed in context. But if I have to look at that shirtless guy with the extravagant butt-crack trying to shatter the store door one more time, I'm going to fly down to New Orleans and arrest him myself. Likewise the footage of the rescue helicopter blowing roof shingles into the air.


… hate the conspicuous lack of maps illustrating where the camera and reporters are in New Orleans, Biloxi, Baton Rouge, Mobile, or elsewhere. Not being New Orleans-savvy, I've had to rely on newspaper maps to orient myself as the action moves from the Superdome to the Convention Center to the French Quarter. Not even Slate's New Orleans-born and -bred Josh Levin could figure out which neighborhoods the heli-cams were observing.