On Friday, January 9th, Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was impeached by that state’s legislature. It was quite a historical event, as he’s the first Illinois governor to be impeached (however, he is the fourth of the last nine governors to be arrested). I was on my way to running errands during my lunch hour (Pacific Time) when Blagojevich started a press conference. I arrived at my destination, but remained in the car because I really wanted to hear what Blagojevich wanted to say. There hasn’t been political theater like this since the Clinton Administration, and I really wanted to hear what transpired. Unfortunately, the radio station I was listening to was a Fox News affiliate, and they broadcast the audio portion of Fox News from TV. I say “unfortunately” because it was on Shepard Smith’s watch, and “Shep” decided to use the opportunity to work on his stand up act during the press conference:

I would expect this kind of behavior from a “Morning Zoo” show or “The Daily Show” (except it would be funnier), but not from someone pretending to be a real newsman, or a station claiming to be fair and balanced (by the way, Smith’s actions were neither). This was completely unacceptable behavior from the channel’s lead anchorman.

This is not the first time for Smith to editorialize over live events. After the verdict was reached in the Michael Jackson molestation case in 1995, Fox was televising Jackson’s motorcade out of the courthouse (one would ask why, but that’s beyond the scope of this post), and Smith yells “you’re a freak” repeatedly during the coverage.

Unprofessional.

“The Newspaper Is Dead” scream various blogs. Many people are suggesting we just let them die, but they’re obviosly not thinking this through. There are many uses of today’s newspaper that cannot be filled by the online versions of the same. There are some that have come out in defense for those that use the newspaper in non-traditional ways, such as for bird cage lining, floor protection for crafts, and fish wrap, but there is a class of people who have been completely ignored. There are people who depend upon the physical form of the newspaper to practice their craft, to facilitate their presentation of work. Who are these people?

We’ve forgotten completely about The Hostage Takers.

The time-honored tradition of parading a hostage in front of cameras holding today’s newspaper is now in peril, unless we act now. I call upon President Obama and the Congress to bail out the newspaper industry so hostage takers in this country have the ability to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that their hostage was alive and well as of the pressing of the newspaper.

Circa 1984: Our cable system got the first “extended” cable channels, which included CNN, The Weather Channel, and MTV.

With a few exceptions, you could go to CNN, 24 hours a day, and see live news. Yes, there was an entertainment news show, a financial news show, but otherwise, if something —anything— happened, at any time of day, you could see it live.

Fast forward 2008: There are now four major cable news channels, two of which belong to CNN. Most of CNN’s programming outside of daytime consists of either “talking head” shows that deliver party-line rhetoric, or “special” pre-recorded programming. To make matters worse, the “talking head” shows are repeated for west coast prime time, meaning that when viewers are watching “live” news on CNN in California, it’s actually three hours old. If anything breaks during the time where those shows are on tape delay, which extends from 9 pm PST until the mid-morning hours the next day, coverage is extremely delayed, and typically only appear in the headline ticker at the bottom of the screen.

CNN’s competition is even worse. Both MSNBC and Fox News fill their weekend and prime time lineups with extremely biased, party line talking heads, with close to zero ‘real news’ content. Worse, they repeat programming during weeknights from 8pm onward on the west coast.

Now, to today (Sunday), where there are major fires in Southern California, and a major earthquake in Indonesia. CNN is broadcasting a show called “Your $$$$”, taped on Fridays, MSNBC is showing a recycled Dateline segment called “Who Shot the Sheriff” and Fox News is showing pre-packaged content named “Television and the President”.

Fortunately, unlike 1982, the Internet is available to go directly to the source: the local television stations and newspapers to get the absolute latest. I was able to watch live streaming video from three different TV stations from Los Angeles, where I was able to watch fire suppression efforts and hear that the tide may be turning in the firefighter’s favor. I was able to visit several newpaper sites from the South Pacific region and read that there was an initial concern about tsunamis, but that concern soon faded away, and found that the death toll, as early accounts had it, was low and there was not widespread damage. None of this came from cable news outlets.

From here on out, when I hear of something “happening”, my first impulse will no longer be cable news…it’ll be the Internet.

A reply to Newspapers – The Terminal UI Problem by Mark Cahill

Yes, newspapers are going the way of the dinosaur, and I get my news almost entirely from the Internet, but there are still some advantages that the traditional newspaper holds over using a laptop to access the newspaper’s web site:

1. If you drop your newspaper, you’ll still be able to read it when you pick it up again.
2. The traditional newspaper doesn’t make your lap sweaty. (Although, I guess there are certain types of newspapers that could…)
3. Newspapers’ batteries don’t die; nor do they explode or catch on fire.
4. When the news really pisses you off and you need a cathartic release, ripping up a newspaper is much easier and less expensive than doing the same with a laptop.
5. If the power goes out or the network connection goes down, the newspaper still can be read.
6. The news in the newspaper doesn’t change; the web site keeps updating (OK, that can be both a pro and a con).
7. Silly Putty does not work on LCD’s.

While attempting to determine just how much the market plunged today, I stumbled across this interesting content on cnn.com (see snapshot to the right). This is the part of their site in which they display the currently available live video. Now I realize the screen is small, and it’s difficult, if not impossible, to read the text, but the screen titled “Live Market Update” appears to be Tina Fey and Amy Poehler from 30 Rock / Saturday Night Live. Has the market become so bad we’ve resorted to sketch comedy for live market updates?