The Newsroom in Normal entries

For some reason Comcast is doing an on demand special of what they consider top shows this week. Ok, it’s not hard to guess the reason; many of the shows are from premium channels. Anyone who has had premium channels before knows that they show the same thing for a month. That’s not really here nor there; I’m not trying to convince anyone not to get premium channels.

The have three seasons of The Newsroom on. I’ve seen them, I’m watching them again. I think it’s a good show, I think the core values of the show regarding the integrity of news reporting are solid. Obviously, on some level, Comcast agrees, though perhaps for baser reasons, like, and I’d be surprised if this wasn’t true, the ratings were high.

What surprises me is that this optimistic this piece of popular fiction has in no way inhibited the rapid and vapid descent of national and local news into carnival like reality TV. Granted, I’m only privy to local shows in areas where I am local, if anyone knows of a serious minded news broadcast with an objective sense of informative and civil discourse I would love to check it out. Um, I mean that is currently running.

It wasn’t that long ago that there was a full weeks news cycle about North Korea as a sovereign nation ‘cyber terrorizing’ Sony, an independent and Japanese based company. George Clooney and Barrack Obama spoke out on all three networks and who knows how many cable news stations about how that was some shit up with which we shall not put. They even had footage of fifteen or so Koreans in what looked like a call center on computers. Turns out that wasn’t the story at all. The real story had a much shorter news cycle. Anchors with straight teeth and nice tans smiled through both cycles.

Shit, I don’t know. I’d like to think that Jeff Daniels makes a more credible news anchor than actual anchors. Wait, no, I don’t like thinking that all, but it’s true. Jon Stewart too.