Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Dumbed Down and Tarted Up Lightweights


The Pre-Bypass Al Roker

During our time in South Korea, Laurie and I were able to access only one English-language channel: AFN...The Armed Forces Network. AFN broadcasted the top shows from every major network, so even though we had only one channel, it was generally pretty high-quality programming. For that reason, and due to the fact that AFN was a taste of home, we probably watched more T.V. than in the rest of our lives combined. I'm grateful my last remaining battalion of battle-hardened brain cells survived their extended tour of duty.

I'm ashamed to admit that we began to watch the news/entertainment trainwreck The Today Show in the morning as we drank our coffee before work, due to the fact that it was the only news program available at that time. Today was the first show to combine news, lifestyle features, interviews, and banal schtick. In its early years, it featured host Dave Garroway and a chimpanzee named J.Fred Muggs. The popularity of the Today Show spawned copycat newstainment programs like Morning Edition and The Early Show.

I still watch Today as I make breakfast in the morning. I'm not proud. I consider the today show to be the Elite Republican Guard of the tabloidization of news. Considering the show was once co-hosted by a chimp, and is now co-hosted by Katie Couric, maybe I expect too much from them, and yet, I can't quite seem to ever lower the bar enough.

It's not the fluff pieces, like Matt Lauer's recent hard-hitting expose on "Mancrushes" (inspired by George Costanza), that irritate me, but rather their unbridled pomposity when ineptly covering real issues. You can tell they're attempting something of importance: Matt adopts a Rob Cordry-like countanance and Katie Couric dons her reading glasses; these are the oh-so-subtle cues that they've channelled the spirit of Ron Burgundy and are trying to pass themselves off as real journalists...

The other day,Couric conducted a typically breezy, lightweight interview with Karen Hughes.

Here's what Media Matters had to say about it:

Katie Couric, host of NBC's Today, prefaced her questioning in an October 18 interview with Karen Hughes, under secretary of state for public diplomacy, by baselessly stating, "I know you're not at liberty to talk about the investigation into the CIA leak"
.

If that weren't enough, on Monday morning, while packing lunch, I caught a brief glimpse of Al Roker, the clown prince of weather, covering the hurricane in Floria live on location.

Al, the de facto spokesman for gastric bypass surgery, adopted the cliched reporter-standing-against-the-wind pose, and I remarked to Laurie that it would be ironic if he were swept away by the hurricane due to his decreased density; he lost the weight so he wouldn't die only to die because he lost weight.

Little did I know my observation came this close to prophecy. Later that night, I found out that a gust of wind actually levelled Roker, and he had to be rescued by his cameramen.

That, my friends, is situational irony.


Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, the imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism profession has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional events and the tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by Dan Rather - who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House - television news has been "dumbed down and tarted up." --Al Gore
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