3 posts tagged “news”

I know you love local news bloopers as much as I do. Tracy Jordan recently went on a morning news program in El Paso, TX to promote a comedy show he was doing there. He crazy!

I just flipped on the television to see that my old stations, KGW and KPTV, are both still on the air with wall-to-wall coverage of the snow that stopped falling at about noon. Yes, there are still about 4 inches on the ground but things have calmed down. All the freeways are cleared of snow and jack-knifed semis. Things are fine. Most people are at home today.

Because I used to work for both of these stations, I know that the only reason they are still on is because the other one is still on. The motto at KPTV (FOX) is to never go off air before KGW (NBC). I bet you can guess what the motto at KGW is. While the other two local stations are in soap operas, KGW and KPTV are in a pissing match to see who can blow out the most commercials and use up the most resources (and piss off the most people) throughout the day. KGW is going to have to go off the air at 4 pm when Oprah comes on, otherwise the world as we know it will come to an end.

This is reason #487 why I hate local news. At this point, where is the consumer benefit? Now they're either being alarmist or they're showing kids who are off school today building snowmen and snow angels. What a waste (as if the soap operas they're cutting into are any better).

Television news in this country-- at every single level-- is a goddamn joke. Unfortunately, it's not funny. I blame the media for the following events:

1. George W. Bush's election in 2000. If the national media didn't have such a hard-on about the fact that he's the son of a former president, he wouldn't be ruining this country. And I mean 'ruining', not 'running'. During the campaign, they edited out all the stupid shit he said and made him sound like a coherent human being. I know because I've seen the raw footage.

2. The Iraq War.  Don't even try to tell me that the national media did not beat the drums all the way to Baghdad. They WANTED a war just as badly as Rumsfeld did. Shortly before the invasion, Tom Brokaw sat down with David Letterman and told him that America needs to go to war in Iraq-- he said it even as he was still anchoring NBC Nightly News. And don't even get me started on Judith Miller and the New York Times.

I am ready to run down the street screaming (a la Vincent D'Onofrio) with the current faux-scandal that the 24-hour newschannels and the talking heads have cooked up. John Kerry made a bad joke about how stupid George W. Bush is and the White House spun it to make the Democrats sound unpatriotic. It's an idiotic stance the White House has taken-- the media has even pointed that out, but the fact that the media is obsessing over this stupid little spat spells success for the White House because its ridiculous message is monopolizing the airwaves. Open your eyes you stupid puppets!!! Make an editorial judgement and STOP COVERING THE GODDAMN NON-STORY. Just shut the hell up. What about the fact that 103 American soldiers were killed in Iraq last month?!? Or, that last quarter marked a record increase in the number of home foreclosures across the nation? The White House doesn't want you talking about that with a midterm election less than a week away.

The saddest part about all of this is that the media and the Republicans are in charge of this nation. I don't matter. YOU don't matter. People wonder why we don't see more war protests-- it's because it doesn't matter. No one is listening to us. They think running this nation and reporting on government is a joke. It's not.