Exhibit A: A clip from Campbell Brown's program on CNN : A correspondent in Haiti is outside a building which had several people still buried under the rubble and people working round the clock to rescue them. One man had been found alive but trapped under the rubble and rescuers were struggling to get him out. The correspondent told us that she managed to get a microphone to the trapped man, and asked him "What is going through your mind right now?" He answered "I pray that you are able to rescue me in time".
Wow, breaking news indeed.
Someone at CNN thought - "sure there's a devastating earthquake and tens of thousands of people have perished, millions are homeless and starving. But that's just meaningless statistics, our viewers can't comprehend that.. how do we make it personal and interesting for them? I know, lets ask a dying man what's on his mind. And report his response in our most earnest, breaking news voice - pretending that it provides some unique insight." There's got to be a term for this attempt to use meaningless sentimentality to bring home the magnitude of a great tragedy.. kind of like "gilding the lily" but the exact opposite.
And yes, I really don't watch the news. I caught this particular bit on Sirius satellite radio. And no, I don't pay for satellite radio either, I got a 6 month free subscription with my new car. It's pretty good though, it has every possible channel anyone could ever want. All the ads are for truck drivers though.
"Spraying skunk venom on a turd"? Not catchy enough...
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5 comments:
Ugh... reminds me very much of "No Man's Land", which I'd highly recommend over watching the news too (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0283509/).
Thanks for the movie reco - my netflix queue is running very short!
How's the news (and TV in general) like in CH? Any English programming?
The only time I've ever watched TV out here is on the elliptical machine when I work out, and the only channels in English are MTV and CNN. I don't own a TV, so all news comes from the same Internet sources I used in the U.S.: Google News, an assortment of blogs/RSS feeds, and BBC when on Android.
Since we're on the topic, do you have any mobile news apps for Android to recommend? BBC is OK, and I have U.S.A. Today installed because I like their daily pictures, but I'm not really a fan of either.
I'd recommend http://www.dailyshow.com :) It's where I get all my news from ;)
Yeah, Daily Show is awesome.
I'm still in need of a good mobile News application through :(
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