I'd also add in that there's no need for a constant 24 hrs news cycle.
Further, many of the cable "news" TV stations (MSNBC, CNN, Fox, etc) are largely opinion and analysis and not news anyway.
I encourage people to (a) Read their news as much as possible, including opinion pieces and (b) If you watch/listen to news, find specific news segments (e.g. your local TV station's new hour). Tune in for 30 minutes to an hour and leave it at that. Tivo it if that's an option for you.
There's no need to have a cable news channel playing all hours of the day.
24 hour news channels are almost useless. I still like the daily news magazine that's put together by networks, like NBC Nightly news. Weeklies like 60 minutes are usually fine too.
This is still true today, though. I am generally sick of the news too but sometimes it is nice to watch local news (WDIV channel 4 here in Detroit) from 6 to 6:30 to hear about stuff going on around town, and then NBC nightly news from 6:30 to 7 to get some more national info.
There's a big difference between watching the national news on ABC/NBC/CBS before dinner and then the local 10/11pm news, and keeping Fox News (or MSNBC or even CNN) on all day long, even as "background noise".
Local news at least has one advantage over cable news; it only runs for a few hours a day so they aren't trying to stretch everything out to fill a full 24/7 schedule. But even so it's still crap, I don't watch local TV news either. The only TV news I've ever considered to be worth a damn was News Hour with Jim Lehrer, which was only an hour a day. Even in that case, I might just have rose-tinted glasses on.
That's the news cycle for you, it's just another time sink to monetize your nonworking hours. There are maybe only a handful of truly significant stories a year, the rest is niche interest stories and stuff that's not very relevant or practical at all in your personal life. Therefore, to keep the lights on, CNN has to keep you on the edge of your seat. They know very well no one will remember yesterdays gaffe.
Personally, I skim the nyt newsletter over cereal and basically only thoroughly read local news articles from the paper of record here and some decent local magazines. Reading local stories gets you out of the little cultural bubble you've formed around your lifestyle. I've learned my city is an onion, a thousand cities at once. National news, on the other hand, is designed to polarize and monetize.
There are more sophisticated techniques I’ve seen in local TV. Put two pieces of unrelated news one before another. Make sure the transition that nobody notices. This usually shed some bad impressions for the first news when done intentionally.
I find it really troubling that in a time when people want to be connected and informed like never before (and have the technology to be so) so many in smaller news organizations try to be every thing to all people, and end up failing spectacularly trying to out perform larger operations at games the larger operations are finely tuned for. Smaller outfits, especially those limited in geographic area, should play to their strong suits. In this case, they should do as much as possible about having LOCAL news.
Watch your local evening news, and if your station does the 5-6:30 model, it's almost certain that the 5:30-6 section will focus on national news, occasionally different anchors, and will have the lowest ratings. The three 30 minute sections' ratings usually follow this model: ¬_/
And news stations will tell themselves "Oh, we put national news in the middle because it has low ratings." I get that if you're forced to play the short view and juts have to fill time. But I do honestly think that if you put more effort into that, over time, you could cultivate a worthwhile news show there. Possibly even just make the 5-6 one hour, and use the expanded time to help flesh out the rest of your stories and make them all run an extra minute longer.
It's just as someone who's worked nearly all of my post-high school life (being 31) in local news, it's always frustrated me how only a few hours a day of local content are produced locally in most places. I think it's a vast misuse (unuse?) of available resources.
I often wish we could abolish 24/7 cable news altother. When breaking news happens, we hear the same breaking news headline for the next 24 hours like it is a new event.
Sometimes I walk by the TV while my mother is watching the local news. It seems to always just be reporting about thefts/gunshots downtown, then some new product available, followed by 15 minutes of weather and sports. I don't find much value in any of that information.
The sad truth is, you totally could fill 24h of news. The sun is always up somewhere. Even in a single country there’s no way nothing interesting isn’t happening somewhere somewhat.
But it’s hard, you need way more sources and accept to broadcast without footage, you can’t filter and spin the messages as much, you don’t have a “voice” and become more of a firehose, it’s less entertaining overall, and you can’t have that on tv.
There just isn't enough important news to fill up 24 hours. I prefer PBS Newshour because they carefully pick and research the stories they do to maximize what they can cover in 1 hour per day.
My grandparents managed to maintain this way of watching news. The TV was off the entire day. They would turn it on at 8pm after dinner for the local/national news report, and turn it off when it finished. It's possible to do but it takes discipline and intention.
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