4 ms·

Gee, you guize! Oh noes, scarey people is doing bad, bad tings, and let's all worry now! Police no can help! Meesuh gonna die now??? Is there a particular

Gee, you guize! Oh noes, scarey people is doing bad, bad tings, and let's all worry now! Police no can help! Meesuh gonna die now??? Is there a particular reason why the 5 o'clock news is dumbed down to non-verbal pre-schooler degrees of retardation? I mean this is like Barney The Purple Dinosaur "2 + 2 is 4" level informative. "...AND NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IT IS!" Bullshit. That is a fucking lie. What's the next segment going to be? Strange lights in the sky, and maybe they're space aliens? Thanks for nothing, "journalists." Someone knows exactly what it is, and where it came from, and they're just not permitted to explain on public channels, because classified. This is just an all-points-bulletin to make sure an otherwise disinformed citizenry starts reporting on a type of crime that they might've been previously unfamiliar with.

dragonwriter 13y ago
> Is there a particular reason why the 5 o'clock news is dumbed down to non-verbal pre-schooler degrees of retardation? Yes, getting eyeballs and selling ads. The simple model of appeals with high emotional resonance and low rational content that generates among a large segment of the population a feeling that the world is a scary, scary place and if they don't keep tabs on the latest danger by watching the news it will be even more dangerous for them is a very effective way of doing that.
- krapp 13y ago
  Often, there's simply no benefit to putting more than the minimum amount of effort into a story. Staff may be untrained, overworked, underpaid, crunched for time or (apparently in this case) just serving up whatever shit the mothership gives them to fill some space. Just look at how many times that particular 'story' mentions 'CNN reported' and 'CNN says.' And the whole thing is like ten sentences. I bet someone didn't even have to put down their coffee for this one.
  - FLUX-YOU 13y ago
    I've worked at a local NBC station that was exactly like this. Nice people, but there's absolutely no incentive at all for anything in depth. Local stations sometimes redeem themselves when shitty weather hits the fan though.

dragonwriter 13y ago

> Is there a particular reason why the 5 o'clock news is dumbed down to non-verbal pre-schooler degrees of retardation? Yes, getting eyeballs and selling ads. The simple model of appeals with high emotional resonance and low rational content that generates among a large segment of the population a feeling that the world is a scary, scary place and if they don't keep tabs on the latest danger by watching the news it will be even more dangerous for them is a very effective way of doing that.

krapp 13y ago
Often, there's simply no benefit to putting more than the minimum amount of effort into a story. Staff may be untrained, overworked, underpaid, crunched for time or (apparently in this case) just serving up whatever shit the mothership gives them to fill some space. Just look at how many times that particular 'story' mentions 'CNN reported' and 'CNN says.' And the whole thing is like ten sentences. I bet someone didn't even have to put down their coffee for this one.
- FLUX-YOU 13y ago
  I've worked at a local NBC station that was exactly like this. Nice people, but there's absolutely no incentive at all for anything in depth. Local stations sometimes redeem themselves when shitty weather hits the fan though.