State of the News Media 2007

For the second time in as many weeks, the White House planned a Presidential news conference at 10amET, presenting a programming dilemma for the networks: carry the news conference across the country, or stick with the regular morning news show on the west coast.

Today, as they did on Dec. 4, NBC decided to stay with the Today show. Producing a new half hour which included portions of the Bush news conference. An NBC News spokesperson explained to TVNewser, "We led with the family that was lost in the mountains in California. We covered the press conference in the news block. We felt this was the best way to serve our west coast viewers looking for the news of the day."

ABC gave affiliates a choice: KABC in LA and KOMO in Seattle aired a three-hour old GMA, adding a voice-over of the Bush news conference to an updated news brief at 7:15amPT. Among those airing the news conference live: San Francisco's KGO and San Diego's KGTV (although KGTV took the Bush event at 7:10amPT in the middle of a Chris Cuomo interview with Sen. Barack Obama.)

CBS aired the special report across the country, rejoining the Early Show at 7:53amPT.

>Update: NBC's special report was an optional to west coast affiliates. A reader from Portland, OR writes "KGW cut away three minutes into the [Today] broadcast and aired the news conference."

Former CBS and CNN correspondent Deborah Potter, now president of the NewsLab takes on the conventional wisdom that the network evening newscasts are outdated and driving away younger viewers. Potter argues that while some "tinkering" is good "the nightly newscasts will never be what they once were — a national hearth around which Americans shared a daily experience."

More of Potter's thoughts after the jump...

continued...

HuffPost's Patrick Waldo has the videotape from a "rare public appearance" Ben Karlin made in New York. Karlin is the eight-time emmy award winning EP of The Daily Show. Karlin also co-created The Colbert Report. He left Comedy Central in December.

Waldo: "Karlin reflects on the worst part of his Daily Show experiences — interacting with actual journalists. He blasts the on-camera media types who praised the work of The Daily Show while still regurgitating mindless news, calling their choices 'a prison of their own construction'. Karlin also dismisses the assertion that some viewers only get their news from The Daily Show, saying viewers would be very confused if they tuned in with no background of the show's topics. Instead, Karlin insists that The Daily Show 'lives as a reaction to something', and shouldn't be used as a primary news source."

Variety's Michael Learmonth writes about a trend this blog and others have been covering this week:

"The cable news wars are getting more personal as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC increasingly take aim at one another, feeding off controversies, real and imagined. The latest salvo took place Thursday morning when Fox News' Fox and Friends crew threw a slap at CNN's God's Warriors series."

During a week that has seen the launch of a BBC newscast for Americans, the expansion of ABC News' global footprint, and mix of news that ranged from Britney to Burma, the Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar defends the nets and their foreign reporting:

It's too easy these days to accuse news orgs of falling down on the job when it comes to reporting outside the U.S., too easy to dismiss the nets and cablers as being Britney and Paris obsessed (disproportionate airtime for those stories notwithstanding). The fact is, these news orgs — networks and newspapers and newsweeklies — do good work, and lots of it.

From the USA Today/Gallup Poll:

In general, how much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media such as newspapers, T.V. and radio — when it comes to reporting the news fully, accurately, and fairly — a great deal, a fair amount, not very much, or none at all?

In the last 24 hours, two local news executives have been named to network news division posts: Dave Davis moves from general manager of WABC to executive vice president of ABC News. And Shannon High-Bassalik takes on the #1 job of live news coverage for MSNBC after running local newsrooms, most recently WFOR/WBFS in Miami. Having worked in both local and network news, I can tell you the perception still exists that being "at the network" carries more weight than "being in local." Perhaps in viewership, ad revenue and salaries that is true. But, if these two announcements say anything, it's that network execs are seeing what the local guys, and gals, can do.

Crawls, banners, snipes, rollovers and tickers; whatever you call them, they add up to screen clutter. And as the NYTimes' Wendy A. Lee writes, they're here to stay; on entertainment shows as well as news programs.

Lee writes, "The trend toward visual clutter has also reshaped television news broadcasts, where the familiar sight of a lone anchor talking to a camera has grown increasingly rare."

"On CNN, the hyperactive pace of Wolf Blitzer's nightly news show The Situation Room is so extreme that it was parodied on 'Saturday Night Live.' With one glance at the screen, is it really possible to absorb the United States military strategy in Iraq, or that a thunderstorm is moving over the Midwest, the Standard & Poor's index is up 16.95 points, and Sean Combs has separated from his girlfriend? 'Our pixel footprint can get way out of control,' acknowledged Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN U.S., referring to the television industry in general."

ICN has the before-and-after NBC screen grabs of the first Oval Office address in HiDef. An insider tells TVNewser, Verizon had problems with their HD circuit which caused the feed to go in and out during the president's address. As the screen grabs show, NBC switched to the standard transmission about seven minutes into the address. We're told NBC and CNN were the only networks taking the HD feed.

Reliable Sources on Sunday, Bill O'Reilly on Monday, GMA on Tuesday. And tonight Lauren Jones is ready for her close-up on primetime network TV. The reviews of Fox's reality show, Anchorwoman are in:

The LATimes: "If [producer Brian] Gadinsky had any courage at all, he would have simply made her a drag queen — that at least would have been interesting — because that is what she is: a female drag queen, her femininity exaggerated, her intelligence diminished."

The NY Daily News: "Anchorwoman turns out to be entertaining — even as it indicts the local TV news operation it pretends to value."

The Washington Post: "Anchorwoman is the sort of trailer-park television you wouldn't mark your calendar to watch each week, but if you channel-surfed across it, you couldn't help but watch."

The NYPost: "...her stupidity's a put-on (for her sake, I hope so), as is this entire show"