I Am A TV Junkie, A Blog For The Clicker Jockey

B&C Report Confirms My Suspicions -- Investigative Journalism Dying on TV

And you know what Randi Rhodes says, "If it doesn't happen on the teevee (emphasis on the first syllable) it doesn't happen in this country."

Marisa Guthrie in Broadcasting & Cable (their cover story this week):

While investigations are far from extinct, few can make the case that the scope and number of reports on network news are not but a shadow of what they once were. In the 1980s and '90s, they were the pride of news divisions and a popular primetime destination. In 1993, the last year that 60 Minutes finished the TV season atop the Nielsen ratings, ABC's Primetime Live was making its name for hidden-camera investigations. Today, the show has no dedicated time slot, and with the recent exception of Diane Sawyer's “Prostitution in America,” it hews toward crime, celebrity profiles and voyeuristic behavior labs. 48 Hours, which began in the late 1980s as a documentary program, has redefined itself as a true crime show. And NBC's Dateline has mostly pared its investigations down to a single gotcha concept such ast he controversial pedophilia sting “To Catch a Predator.”

The decline began in the 1990s when a string of high-profile legal skirmishes sent corporate counsel at the networks into a defensive posture. The actions put network news divisions on notice: If you're going to take on big businesses, keep in mind that they will defend themselves ferociously.

The other thing to keep in mind? The people who want to control the news that comes out about their companies on TV only have to buy a lot of advertising on TV to control said news. In particular, I think that we can chalk up the lack of media oversight on the pharmaceutical industry to the fact that they are the primary supporters of network and cable news.

And, in the very conspiratorial part of my brain, I think they pushed to get permission to advertise on TV just for that purpose.

This is why I get most of my investigative journalism from PBS and the BBC (through the BBC World News America broadcast and the Friday night program Newsnight, which I DVR and the rest of you should all be watching).

In particular, the kind of reporting American Greg Palast does for the BBC (this Newsnight clip after the jump, his 2007 story on African debt and vulture funds) and can't do for the US (because they won't let him do this kind of work) is what I look for on the tube.

Before I go, comments from Lowell Bergman, who works at PBS' Frontline and teaches at Cal Berkeley, from the article:

“What's really in danger is the availability of information in the public interest,” says Lowell Bergman, a veteran of CBS News and 60 Minutes. “That kind of work was never encouraged. You always had to know where the limits were. Now there isn't even a pretense of doing it.”

Bergman, who runs the investigative reporting program at the University of California at Berkeley and continues to work for Frontline, calls investigations an “anti-profit” business.

There is profit, of course. We, the audience, profit. But that's certainly not the profit that the network news divisions are considering in 2008.

He's Crawling! German Zoo Polar Bear Video To End Our Day

And you don't even have to click past the jump to see it. Goodnight.

MSNBC Projects Hillary, CNN & Fox Pee All Over It

So I'm sitting here when Olbermann is interrupted (and I love Keith, but I also know he hates being interrupted, by anything!) by the news that MSNBC is projecting Hillary Clinton, and you can see the "wha-a-a-a-t?" in Keith's face because the conventional wisdom is that Obama will carry the college election districts big time and come back.

And it's soooo close right now.

So I immediately click over to CNN and Wolf Blitzer has just gone into this rap about how they aren't going to project Hillary because they want to be very very sure. And then Candy Crowley says the same thing, and you know they've just heard in their earpieces that MSNBC just projected Hillary.

Then AP projects Hillary and I decide to hold my breathe and click over to Fox News, which you know I never ever do. And they are saying that AP is projecting Hillary and the reporter (off camera, I don't know a lot of the voices well enough to tell you who it was) is saying how they have all the same data and they aren't projecting Hillary and anyone who is is just wrong (wrong might not have been the word they used).

It's now 7:46 at now Blitzie is announcing the Hillary projection. Well, so much for this post.

MSNBC called it first. Must have had something to do with the exit polling they did.

Campbell Brown Hiring Going Just as I Expected, She's a Right Wing Shill

Well, of course! If I could talk directly to CNN's Jonathan Klein ...

Hey, you, news guy, did you really think that hiring the wife of the noted neo-conservative Dan Senor was going to play well in the news game?

I think Lynne Cheney might have an hour to spare daily, how 'bout putting her on the air?

And Jonathan, hiring Brown to challenge O'Reilly at 8 is just the most ridiculous mistake I've seen in many years of watching the cable nets jockey around each other. It's almost like you never watch your channel or know anything about your rivals.

From Americablog today:

The wife of Dan Senor, who served as a spokesperson for Bush in Iraq, is now working for CNN. Normally, who a reporter's spouse is wouldn't and shouldn't matter. And, it wouldn't if Campbell Brown didn't show an obvious bias. Last night, in her first week on the job, she attacked MoveOn:

During the November 28 CNN special Campaign Killers: Why Do Negative Ads Work?, CNN anchor Campbell Brown said: "General David Petraeus made his reputation taking on insurgents in Iraq. But when he came to Capitol Hill in September, he was confronted by American insurgents, a liberal anti-war group called MoveOn.org."

Seriously, comparing MoveOn to insurgents is beyond the pale. That is such an obviously loaded term. Campbell Brown showed a clear bias, plain and simple.

The headline of the post? "Republican Operative's Wife Attacks MoveOn.org. Oh, She's Also CNN's New Anchor Campbell Brown."

All of my posts on Campbell Brown and her bias are at this link.

MSNBC Makes the Right Move, Sez No to Rosie Talker

And that's a good thing, even if you enjoy Rosie like I do, because MSNBC and a one-hour news-related talk show is not the place for her. Sorry, Rosie, I love ya lots, but I don't want you gumming up the works at Olbermann-land.

Hollywood Reporter:

O'Donnell's blog and other sources confirmed that plans for MSNBC to have her host a talk show at 9 p.m. weeknights fell apart following days of negotiations.

"We were close to a deal almost done," O'Donnell wrote on her blog late Wednesday under the name "Ro." Negotiations continued late into Wednesday, but it was clear by evening that there would be no deal and no show.

The person that should have the slot behind Keith was, is, and always will be another out lesbian with short dark hair, and her name is Rachel Maddow.

Maddow, Rhodes Scholar, Doctor of Political Science, former HIV/AIDS activist (thank you, Rachel), and current host of The Rachel Maddow Show on Air America Radio and of Rachel Maddow's Campaign Asylum, a series of YouTube clips that are available on YouTube and right here on this blog.

She is the woman who I want to see have a show on MSNBC. I think I've made myself more than clear in all the posts I have written on the topic, and I hope Dan Abrams is reading this.

Rosie O'Donnell on MSNBC? No. Thank You.

Not that I don't enjoy Rosie, but she has no place on a cable news channel.

Like I said, it's a NEWS channel.

If you want to put an out lesbian on your network, Dan Abrams, it's not Rosie you should be looking at, it is Rachel Maddow.

How many times do I need to say this to you, Dan?

Click here for all my Rachel Maddow posts.

Those Fire Stories on Your TV Don't Tell The Whole Story

Obviously, the last couple days haven't been great ones here in Southern California. No one likes days in which you can taste the air. BTW, it's not a good taste. Think of this: You've used the same wet length of paper towel to clean all the ashtrays at Sterling Cooper, the ad agency in the AMC series Mad Men and then put the dirty end, as a flight attendant might say "over your nose and mouth and breathe normally."

Ugh!

You don't wanna take your pets out because their lungs are smaller than yours. You don't wanna wear contact lenses because it's the equivalent of putting hot metal discs in your eyes on a day like this. You certainly don't wanna go anywhere near the fire zone on the freeway, traffic and air the color of rust isn't something you want to be in even in your car.

KABC even preempted Oprah for fire coverage. Preempting Oprah is a big effin' deal in broadcasting. No Oprah, no Ellen, no soaps, no other news but the fire, no, no, no no no no.

So you'll excuse me if I find myself eschewing my usual and customary activities and just feeling like rolling up in a ball on my bed in a closed-up house (one more no, no open windows).

On top of all this, the guys installing my new bathtub had to cut a whole in the wall my bathroom shares with my bedroom and you know this hasn't been a day that makes me happy.

It's not just hot, it's oppressively hot at the end of October, you can see the air, you can taste it, the great outdoors is taking on a sepia tone as the particulates in the air get worse and worse, and I now have two bathroom entrances where I used to have one.

Homer and I are just not having a good day.

Here's some YouTube footage someone took of the Santiago fire, the one in Orange County, a fire that has been determined to be arson. There's a special place in Hell for those people.

LINK

I might be back later.

On a lighter note, I saw California's first lady Maria Shriver on CNN and she looks like she's gained a bit of weight, which is a good think for her. She'd been looking unhealthy lately in her public appearances.

MSNBC's Countdown Surging -- Variety

From the article:

Fox News Channel has finished another dominating quarter in cable news, but the growth story continues to be MSNBC, up 53% in primetime from a year ago on the strength of its 8 p.m. anchor "Countdown With Keith Olbermann."

(snip)

MSNBC's primetime growth is driven by Olbermann's "Countdown," which averaged 744,000 viewers, a 73% increase from the same period last year.

For a weekly snapshot of the battle for 8 PM ET in the cable news wars, a great place to look is our friends at TVByTheNumbers.com, which is covering this clash on a weekly basis.

Congrats to Keith and the Countdown crew. Not only are they gaining, but they do the best hour of news on cable, hands down.

More Olbermann on Blackwater USA Hearings

This guy Erik Prince from Blackwater? Going straight to hell (of course, I don't really believe in hell).

And if there is one, he's on a line that includes so many people these days that they're going to have to build an annex to hell, and if they do I betcha Halliburton gets the no-bid contract.

A rare Keith error here, the blog that this story originated at is TalkingPointsMemo.com, a great political blog and part of the Joshua Micah Marshall empire that includes TPM Muckraker and TPM Cafe.

In this clip, Keith talks to Jeremy Scahill from The Nation, who's been doing excellent coverage of this story. Click here for more of that.

LINK

About That San Diego Sinkhole on the News Right Now

Los Angeles Times:

A landslide this morning heavily damaged one home and created a sinkhole about 50 feet wide beneath a street on Mt. Soledad, a pricey neighborhood on the edge of La Jolla.

(snip)

The road is buckled between Desert View Drive and Palomino Circle. About 2,500 customers were without power after utility poles fell to the ground, officials said.

That is some neighborhood. I have not been down there since college roommate Dave was out here years and years ago, but those homes are worth bank, serious bank. Of course, every house in California, especially near the beach, is expensive, but these homes are pretty extraordinary.

MSNBC went directly from this story to even more coverage on Britney's child issues. Can you believe it? Complete with whining attorney Susan Moss (infamous, at least in this house, from her Nancy Grace appearances where she tries to bark every cliche she can think of into the mic).

If there's an exit line for people leaving the TV business, I would hope both Grace and her pal Moss are standing at the head of it.

Another option? They could donate all their earnings (all of them) to some needy cause. Maybe that will keep them out of hell.

Ah, if only I believed in all that.