Drew misunderstood me!
I'd like to thank Drew for his response to my view that the cable news channels have devoted WAY TOO MUCH time to the death of Anna Nicole Smith. (By the way, I learned today from the cable news stations that Smtih is STILL dead.)
However, Drew mischaracterized my Sunday column. He wrote: "Didn't you and your other editor, Del (Stone), yell at us and complain that we should shut-up and read what's in our newspaper because it's what WE want?"
Actually, what I wrote, specifically, is "editors can’t forget that we’re the ones who choose what to offer our readers in the first place."
And that's my point about the cable news channels; THEY, not their viewers, have decided to cover Smith's death for hours and hours. And to do that they've sacrificed news about the war in Iraq, and especially the deaths of soldiers who are fighting that war on our behalf.
posted by Patrick Rice @ 3:54 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Dang! I knew I should have gone with "Anonymous"!
Touché, Mr. Rice.
Thank you for understanding that I misunderstood and that you got me to understand my misunderstood post...I think?
Hit me. (misunderstood? see bottom of post)
I was more directly referring to one of Del's furious, but always entertaining, columns. I actually complete forgot that you wrote one...sorry! Your's was a bit more subtle.
Yes, we live in a world where a person who dies from, apparently, a boob job gets more news than patriots who die fighting for their country. They (the news networks) could've been devoting a lot more of their airwaves to the developing stories in the Middle East and North Korea about the closing of the borders to Iraq from Syria and Iran, and the finally semi-successful talks between U.S. negotiators and N. Korea, or the rising awareness that Iran is quite probably helping transport and manufacture weapons to be used against U.S and its allies.
I could be wrong, and I wouldn't be surprised, but don't you think FOX, CNN, and MSNBC are getting at least slightly higher ratings because of this incident? I personally think that most of America is too ignorant to even notice, and I actually don't blame them because they're exposed and brainwashed with this crap.
I think I'd call it a push, Mr. Rice.
While I totally understand the frustration with the extensive coverage of fluff news (anything to do with celebrities), it is rather pompous to assume that only you have the solution or pulse of what the public wants. If I ran the newspaper, I'd be covering a lot more stories about science and and the like. However, I don't run a paper, and the news coverage is driven by advertising dollars. Until we can wean the public off their fascination with living (and dead) train wrecks, we'll have to endure Anna, Paris, Brittany, etc...
Furthermore, there are a lot of people in the Panhandle that are not "natives" here (with Sunbirds and the Base here), so expanding news to cover world events would hopefully appeal to a wider audience.
After all, you are hopefully looking to be a newspaper of note, not some small town rag, correct? :)
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