Monday, April 04, 2016

TV News in Hell

NM Political Report has a good story on KRQE gagging their own reporters.  It is worth a read.  As an old time TV newsman this shows just how awful things have gotten. During my career in the 60s and 70s we might have been encouraged to do a short story on the opening of a new store, but if the store was ripping people off later on there was never any attempt by management to put pressure on the news room to kill the story. Most of the News Directors in TV now are just corporate clowns that know little about journalism or even care. You actually can see the only time they get on their high horse is when there is a government scandal. But since business and corporations are off limits we mostly see lapel camera video and lost dog stories with an occasional Larry Barker story on a government employee abusing per diem.

And as you know, TV is a visual medium that used to value photo(Film) journalism. Now it is all fuzzy Skype interviews or over the phone audio, unless there are cute puppies or kittens rescued then it is full on 4k HiDef video.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You gotta wonder how much business city hall gives to the Journal and the TV stations. I have heard more than one story where Rob Perry, Darren White and Jay McClusky have called KRQE and told news director Paul Burt to back off or they would cut them off on all stories and political advertising.The media has become such whores.

Anonymous said...

TV "News" on the local level is awful. The 'Presenters' are using slang such as 'bucks' and 'grand' which would have earned a red check-mark on my papers in grade school. They sit and have a phony 'impromptu' conversation with each other while we are their captive audience! And we are supposed to be entranced by their banter. I'm not.

Dr. Sax said...

I'm shocked, shocked to discover that advertising clients determine the content of TV news programming. Golly gee, how did making a profit become the bottom line in our country?