Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Pope's Death: Dropping the Ball
Source: Market Watch Last weekend, U.S. television networks scrambled to surpass one another in the coverage of the Pope John Paul II's death.
Sadly, however, what we most prominently saw was an electronic media competition for the dubious honor of airing the dumbest piece of reporting and analysis.
At its lowest, the coverage practically disintegrated into a virtual game of Can You Top This?
> Fox News prematurely aired the news of the pope's death. This kind of flub is as bad as it gets in journalism, folks. And there is no excuse for it, particularly in this case. Every network was at the mercy of the Vatican on this story. So, there couldn't be any likelihood of a scoop. Everyone was going to find out at the exact same time. What Fox did was as questionable as a high school student giving the right answer on a final exam but failing to show the work.
> Larry King's interview on CNN with former Secretary of State Colin Powell on Sunday night was positively surreal. What started as a nice, respectful chat about the pope's legacy dissolved, and fairlyquickly, into a ludicrous chat about their families. You can't make this stuff up.
CNN took its lumps for other aspects of its reporting.
As a viewer in Oregon wrote to Washington Post media specialist Howard Kurtz, who also presides over the CNN show "Crossfire," "I am simply flabbergasted at the wall-to-wall coverage surrounding the passing of il Papa. Turning to CNN for your take yesterday morning, of course I met only with a series of smiling insipid faces (I'm sorry, but not only does the coverage never end, it is for the most part grossly inappropriate in tone) adding nothing new to the media orgy, but relenting not."
Of course, it wasn't only CNN which featured shiny, happy anchors and reporters over the weekend. Most likely, every network could be accused of that sort of thing.
You'll find the complete article HERE.
# posted by ATN @ 8:18 AM 
