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Topic: Reporting Competition
| Author | Message |
| pjarnold | Posted – 1/22/2008 6:14:57 PM | show profile | email poster This website makes such a big deal out of which network reported what story first. Do you think anybody gives a shit if Fox reports that Fred Thompson pulled out of the race two minute before CNN does? No wonder the vast majority of the American public has no idea what is happening in their government. The press show no capacity for informing their viewers of news that really matters - such as policy. As long as the news media continues to focus on inane stories that mean nothing, the downward slide of public knowledge will continue. This is the exact circumstance that led to a moron called George Bush being elected twice. |
| stvj57 | Posted – 1/23/2008 2:57:28 AM | show profile yeah the press should focus on subjects that really matter. like hilary and obama fighting over who disagreed with reagan the most. |
| chucho | Posted – 1/23/2008 4:35:41 AM | show profile I see your point. To the average news consumer it doesn't matter if one network scoops another by two minutes. Making a big deal of that in this day and age is dumb. There was a time (and there still is a time in many cases) when scooping the competition meant getting the key source of information that your competition didn't get, or that you had it a day earlier (in the case of newspapers). But now? The Internet? Google Reader? It's not relevant if X gets news two minutes earlier than Y. What I watch for in cable news is the evolution of the breaking news story. That's when the network is put through the rigors and truly tested. Any network can hire 8 dudes (almost always white dudes) to bloviate and fill a few hours of the 24 cycle. But when the shit hits the fan (Katrina, etc.) that's when the network's strengths and weaknesses really come out. I don't watch a lot of cable news but I was traveling during the California fires and CNN was clearly and unambiguously developing the story at a faster rate that the other networks -- I remember quite clearly Fox played the same segment numerous time (a reporter marveling at how the fires burned one house but didn't touch the house next door -- OK, Fox News, we get it -- everything is in God's hands -- blah blah blah) . . . Meanwhile when you switched to CNN they were reporting on the number if insurance claims that had been submitted that day. At that moment I found that the number of insurance claims was more newsworthy than a reporter opining about how amazing it was that one house had been burned to the ground while the house next door was barely damaged. So I think "scooping" the competition these days is much more than getting it first. It's what you can get in a short amount of time in a breaking news story. What resources you have and devote and your on-air talents. When something is breaking, that's when I turn on the teevee and that when you can really see the differences among them. |
