Saturday, September 09, 2006
Actual News
The news was in the news this past week, or at least the news on one network, that network being CBS, because some people thought it was a big deal that Katie Couric, the cherub-faced chipper gal from The Today Show was taking over as solo anchor of their Evening News. Well, that aspect really was no big deal. For one thing, there are other solo female anchors out there, and there’s nothing all that special about the original “big three” broadcast networks when you can get sixty channels for not much per month from cable. Still, having said that, I’ll also note that I did watch on Monday out of sheer curiosity.
I’m glad I did, because it let me know that I should watch the other four days as well. Amazingly, Ms. Couric is the first evening news anchor that I’ve actually liked since Cronkite retired. She is a whole lot better than her gig on Today would lead you to believe. In fact, she’s better than anyone else on national, or so far as Las Vegas is concerned, local television today. No kidding. Why, you ask, I’m sure.
She’s better because she delivers the news in a calm and easy to listen to voice, never shrill and never shouting. She never puts any false urgency into her reports, which is something every other newscast does at least some of the time. I think Fox started it on the national scene, but it was of course the local stations in Los Angeles that introduced the falsely urgent “high speed chase” and other distractions now imitated so widely. In fact, on cable news, Fox is probably the least sensationalistic these days, a fact I never thought I’d be reporting, but there it is. Generally, the broadcast networks are all better than cable, but only CBS, and only starting last week, seems to be putting out a product worth of the name “news program.”
Not only is her delivery good, but she really does strive to be fair. For example, on Monday she had a reporter from the New York Times on a segment called “free speech,” wherein people get to say whatever they want for a few minutes. On Thursday Rush Limbaugh was the speaker. He ranted less than on his own program, but there was nothing to suggest he modified a single bit of his point in order to gain his spot. Maybe that fairness is why she, of all people, got to interview the President during the week. Somehow he trusted her to just let him say what he was going to say, but not those other guys, even the supposed mindless White-House supporters (so called by some) at Fox. So, let me commend the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric to your attention. Assuming she keeps it up, you’ll get to see what a news program used to look like back before, well, before these last few years when “news” has devolved into “infotainment.” If you’re like me, you probably have noticed that “infotainment” is neither informative nor particularly entertaining. I’m happy to see that someone, at least, appears to be committed to actually imparting a few facts.
In a related but separate note, one item of news I saw last week is that the nation of China has a serious problem with childhood obesity. Before you say something like, ‘yeah, so who doesn’t?’, consider that China has never in the past several thousand years had a surplus of food before. China, of all places, has too much to eat. I can’t think of anything that will guarantee that they will not act as our enemy that is possibly better than fat Chinese kids. I wish them luck with that problem, I really do, because maybe whatever they use that works can be applied here. But I’m really, really glad to see that they’ve joined the flabby and prosperous. The whole planet should have that problem, really it should.
Labels: Politics
