London and the media

Bruce and Brandon already wrote much of what I was going to say about the London bombing.

As sad as I was to see it, I was really struck how detrimental our 24 hour news cycle has become. After about a half hour of coverage, we had learned all there was to learn until new information could come out. But they just sit there, speculate, speculate, and speculate some more--all, of course, with the video running in the background of ambulances or people covered in debris.

If I were king, I think I would remind those stations that they have a public service obligation (that seems lost on Republicans, btw). After all, they are using public air waves and their existence is not just solely to make money for Rupert Murdoch. I would require that 24 hour news stations run content half the time--not counting midnight to 6 am. Run something public oriented. Then at least, there might be something else to cut back to when the story is clearly told.

Because it isn't like there wasn't constant news coverage before. When a big event happened, the networks preempted the soaps to cover whatever it was. But there was some kind of pressure to return to something else. With CNN, FOX and MSNBC, there is nothing to do but regurgitate and speculate.

A few weeks ago, during the NBA finals, we had a serious storm come through Oklahoma. Few twisters, but really damaging winds. The ABC affiliate broke into the game a few times early on--usually on commercial breaks to keep us up to speed and warn us that what looked like a little storm on the northern border of Oklahoma was going to threaten the entire state, but then they would return to the game. Finally, they had to devote their entire coverage to the storm. Why? Because there was new information happening all the time. It was actually news. It wasn't a couple of Channel 4 drones sitting around talking about some mesocyclone that had occurred hours earlier--it was happening. But there was always this tension that there was a game on. If the storm really wasn't news, they were going back to the game.

We need a national game that is broadcast everyday on the 24 hour news networks.