Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Oh come on now!

CBS News: Hillary's Body-Language Showed She Didn't Really Endorse Obama

I found this over at Talking Points Memo, courtesy of Greg Sargent. Does CBS really need to do this sort of thing? Did they even bother to take half a moment to think about what they were propagating by coming up with a lame ass junk shit story like this?
Obviously, they didn't. There is so much shame that should be spreading through the CBS "news" division today.

5 comments:

Deana said...

You have got to be freakin' kidding me! Is it really so hard - so, so, difficult for the talking heads to say "Good job, HRC." And then: Let. It. Go.

There is nothing to criticize and they know it so they go... to body language! Ai yai yai.

David Larkins said...

See, here's the problem: with news on 24/7, the media are forced to basically just start making shit up after a while. I mean, it's impossible to talk about the same thing indefinitely, no matter what you're talking about.

I think the problems with modern reportage and the general public's increasing lack of understanding of politics could both be solved if we simply returned to an "old style" of news reporting. Quality over quantity and all that.

(At the very least, they need to ditch the screen crawls and tendency to label everything "Breaking News" that's been with us since 9/11.)

Anonymous said...

"See, here's the problem: with news on 24/7, the media are forced to basically just start making shit up after a while."

No they aren't. PBS' Newshour with Jim Lehrer does more investigative journalism than all the networks and cable news stations combined and they only have to fill five hours a week.
There are a million stories CBS could have gone with that were actually true and pertinent to something. Instead of trumping up some asinine speculation on HRC's imaginary bitterness and body language, they could have spent that time talking about what's going on in Darfur or Tibet or something.

David Larkins said...

That's exactly my point, wiggles. The "News Hour" is a perfect example of what I was referring to as the "old style" news reporting; with only five hours to fill, the producers and reporters have to focus on relevancy instead of jabber, and have the luxury of time to research and prepare their stories rather than jumping on the first thing that comes along in a desperate bid to scoop the other networks.

quixote said...

We should stop calling it "Breaking News"?

Oh, I dunno. Seems like a good name for what they're doing. Although maybe you're right. "Broken News" would be more accurate.