Volume I No. 39
 12-02-02
 The Incredible Dumbing Down 
  of the Airwaves
 { Idiotic Sportscasts, Off-Color 
   Newscasts, and No Escape } 
 author: Vance Cureton
 © Copyright 2002

  Now that the NFL season is at its peak, if you are a football fan
 and just dying to learn all of the final scores before the next morning's
 edition of the local newsper. You might find yourself over at ESPN
 hoping to catch SportsCenter. And what you will be greeted with 
 there - if you are over the age of 45 - might at times seem a bit 
 much.

 To wit: 

 "And we've got the flava! All the top highlights from today's 
 smashmouth football games.

 "And the crew is right heh' with me."

 "What's up dawwwg?"

 Arrrgggh!

 SportsCenter is okay. But not as the only option. And where is the 
 alternative?

 Wouldn't it be nice to be able to catch a sports highlight program 
 where every single host doesn't speak in bad rhymes, and sound as 
 if they are addressing only the 18 year olds in the audience. I mean
 a forty year old man - or woman - going on like some recent college
 grad is frankly embarrassing. In some markets ESPN is all that you 
 get in the way of late night sports, and without an alternative, you're
 likely to end up extremely frustrated if what you hunger for is something 
 just a little bit more erudite, sane, and classy. - Or just plain. 

 Plain.

 Just a plain simple sports cast.

 No, sports is not the evening news. It's not religion. It doesn't have
 to be so serious. But why does EVERY sportscast - even outside of
 ESPN - have to have edge. Why does EVERY sportscast have to be 
 so LOUD, and unfailingly sarcastic, and full of inanities, and bad 
 puns. And why do all these guys have to put on a show as if they're 
 all "from the hood," or Sunday afternoon drinking buddies.

 Not.

 Once upon a time, it was imagined that cable would allow a dramatic 
 increase in on-air diversity. A fantastic new spectrum of viewpoints
 and attitudes. This is far from the reality of what is actually available 
 to the audience. The result is that what we have arrived at is a serious 
 dumbing down of broadcasting . All the networks aim to catch are 
 the high-spending { so the advertisers claim } but attention deficient, 
 18-34 year olds. 

 What about the rest of the audience? The 40, 50, and 60 year olds 
 who can do without the foolishness. All-of-the-time. Where are the 
 next generation of distinguished sports journalists? The Jack Whitaker's, 
 Haywood Hale Bruon's, and Howard Cosell's? Men of knowledge, 
 experience, and wisdom. And poets - in their own way - of a different 
 kind.

 I know of one network where you won't find them.

 Note to ESPN: "Please change the theme of your commercials. The 
 ones that are off-beat and irksome. And have been repeated endlessly. 
 { stuffed animals and  mascots, men awkwardly hugging men, dorky, 
 hopelessly, out-to-wherever white guys }  Those commercials have been 
 running for a couple of years now. Maybe longer. 

 Make them go away.

 They are really, really, becoming tiresome. 

 Time to go in a completely new direction.

 Please!

 In this same vein. Have you caught the Fox Morning News? Yes,
 the early morning show on the one cable network that's allegedly 
 conservative-themed, wholesome, and that's supposed to be all
 about fair and unbias reporting.

 What a joke.

 Well, maybe they should start at home, and re-think that morning
 news broadcast of theirs. The show is becoming coarser, and coarser, 
 and coarser. Recently, one of the ahem...journalists actually referred 
 to that sad, pathetic, miserable, tragedy of a human-being,  Michael 
 Jackson as a "freak." 

 On a morning news broadcast!

 Maybe he is or not. And who cares, anyway.

 But that's besides the point.

 There are young people in the audience.

 It's 7am!

 And it's not the word, but the manner in which the word was used 
 that was inapproriate.

 Yes, we all know that cable is cable, and such worldly language 
 is not going to be heard on the 7o'clock NBC/CBS/ABC evening
 news. But a news broadcast should be a news broadcast. Not a 
 talk show in disguise. There should be a certain standard of 
 conversation. A line in the sand that can never be crossed. The 
 day Katie and Matt, or Charlie and Diane, for example, start 
 sounding like Don Imus, Howard Stern or Jerry Springer - is the 
 day the narrow margin that already exists between news and 
 entertainment programming, will have been completely obliterated. 

 Don Imus, for those not in the know, is available on MSNBC in 
 the mornings. And his program has segments that can sometimes
 be out-there. But anyone tuning into the Imus show probably has 
 an awareness that his program is not in reality a news broadcast. 
 It's a radio talk show, that is simulcast on cable. 

 The Don Imus Show is a different animal, entirely.

 At least over on CBS where they've introduced a relentlessly 
 "gabby" new morning program, they've managed to kept it relatively 
 clean, and not gone in the direction of sleaze, coarseness, and 
 the street. The way they have over at Fox News. The CBS show 
 is total fluff and nonsense. - And a bit crowded on the set with 
 four hosts. But there isn't anything likely to pop up in their 
 conversation that innocent young ears can't be allowed to wonder
 about.

 And that's a comforting thought.

 Ahh, we've left out grand old CNN. Viewership is down.

 Perhaps a touch of panic has set in?

 Aaron Brown?

 Who does he think he is? The second coming of Eric Severeid?

 The late Eric Severeid got his start as a World War II news
 correspondent. Now that's experience. He did see it all. So he 
 could talk about it all.

 Please with the pontificating.

 Enough already.

 Half-a-decade ago Aaron, you were hosting World News Now 
 on ABC late-night.

 Just like Derek McGinty is now. 

 Stop with the nonsense. 

 Paula Zahn. Paid mercenary.  She'll be elsewhere in two years.

 Connie Chung?

 Terrible one-on-one interviewer. Why does she deserve a talk 
 show? Has she actually succeeded elsewhere on a long-term
 basis? And as anything besides being famous for just being 
 Connie Chung.

 Why did ABC really let her go?

 See above mention of Paula Zahn.

 More Carol Lin would be nice. Give her a show. Although her 
 interviewing skills are not the best, either. And more air-time 
 for CNN's superb daytime talent, Daryn Kagen, Kira Phillips, 
 and Leon Harris, as well.

 But, wouldn't it be nice to see CNN abandon their rediculous
 attempt at becoming more "hip." And more relevant. What does 
 that mean anyway, as it concerns, of all things, a news network. 

 CNN is not a hip network. And never will be. It's a stick-in-the 
 mud. The stodgy pioneer cable network that introduced the concept
 of "instantaneous international news reporting" to the world. 
 CNN does not need to become hip to survive. It does not need to 
 become more relevant. Stay the course. The viewers will find you 
 again.

 So, please replace the very nice - but out of place on CNN - Carol 
 Costello with the more reserved and elegant, Catherine Calloway 
 at 5 am weekdays.

 Maybe a little less laughing and nonsense. And more news.

 And in the absolutely too crazy to be believed category. Last
 fall CNN encouraged their on-air personalites to use language 
 that was more in the comfort zone for younger urban viewers. 
 So they could potentially relate more to a new and underserved
 audience.

 Can anyone say "Ebonics."

 Ebonics?

 No, not Ebonics. What is it called that young urban white kids 
 speak?

 Groan...

 Does that even merit an answer.

 Yes, the whole thing is as bad an idea as it sounds.

 See title. 

 Then, re-read this entire article.
 

 ReadingPost.Com
 © Copyright 2002

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