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I think it says something when "the news" is competing with shows that are primarily comedic like Last Week Tonight and The Daily Show. Those shows are definite

I think it says something when "the news" is competing with shows that are primarily comedic like Last Week Tonight and The Daily Show. Those shows are definitely as much entertainment as they are news, but they still seem to have as much actual journalism as broadcast news sources. My mom sits down every night to watch World News on ABC, followed by the local news. I can't stand watching either. There's very little content, every segment is interrupted by ads, and the interesting content is put at the very end so they can tease it before every commercial break. First Commercial: "Coming up after the break, we did some investigative journalism for once" Second Commercial: "Coming up: That investigative Journalism" Third Commercial: "Still after the break: What you actually want to see" 45 minutes and 10 commercials later: "And after this break, the investigative piece." And the investigative piece is 30 second long, says that the one person of interest wouldn't comment, and has less information than you could find out using a public portal on your local government's website. Then you get a 2 minute clip of a funny video from the internet chopped the hell up, with the anchors talking over it the entire time. "Tune in next week. More Americans get their news from ABC News than any other source."

apendleton 10y ago
> they still seem to have as much actual journalism as broadcast news sources I don't think that assertion holds water, and if you broaden beyond "broadcast" to "mainstream," even less so. I love Last Week Tonight, and they do some genuine investigative work, but a lot of their news coverage is parroting/spinning other people's coverage that they find especially insightful. I'm glad that they're giving broader voice to some of that material, but it would be much more expensive were they to produce it all themselves. Foreign coverage, in particular, is extremely expensive, and almost nobody in the new media space is throwing serious money at it; it's super important and kept afloat almost exclusively by old-media behemoths who maintain scores of foreign bureaus all over the world -- CNN, NYT, NPR, etc. (Vice is the one possible new-media-company exception, here, in that they do foreign investigative work at all, but they don't maintain a permanent presence anywhere, I don't think.)
vinay427 10y ago
That's why I've recently gotten my parents to change their schedule slightly to watch PBS NewsHour. Easily the nicest TV news in the US with its relatively condensed yet exploratory methodology. Personally, I peruse the PBS NewsHour website for news and the New Yorker for editorials.

apendleton 10y ago

> they still seem to have as much actual journalism as broadcast news sources I don't think that assertion holds water, and if you broaden beyond "broadcast" to "mainstream," even less so. I love Last Week Tonight, and they do some genuine investigative work, but a lot of their news coverage is parroting/spinning other people's coverage that they find especially insightful. I'm glad that they're giving broader voice to some of that material, but it would be much more expensive were they to produce it all themselves. Foreign coverage, in particular, is extremely expensive, and almost nobody in the new media space is throwing serious money at it; it's super important and kept afloat almost exclusively by old-media behemoths who maintain scores of foreign bureaus all over the world -- CNN, NYT, NPR, etc. (Vice is the one possible new-media-company exception, here, in that they do foreign investigative work at all, but they don't maintain a permanent presence anywhere, I don't think.)

vinay427 10y ago

That's why I've recently gotten my parents to change their schedule slightly to watch PBS NewsHour. Easily the nicest TV news in the US with its relatively condensed yet exploratory methodology. Personally, I peruse the PBS NewsHour website for news and the New Yorker for editorials.