Start of Iraq offensive

Start of offensive against Iraq

One of the great stupidities of television news is the assumption that if you have airtime, you must fill it. The information conveyed in 15 minutes of watching CNNreport something that happened hours ago ("We saw anti-aircraft fire and heard missiles, but we don't see or hear anything now and hey, look, there's traffic on the road!") was repetitive, monotonous, and thin. In addition, every single reporter and announcer speculated or surmised - that's not reporting, that's editorializing, or just plain grandstanding.

That's why I don't watch television news for more than five minutes every month.

And that's why I avoided the broadcast journalism degree I was heading for in college...


Written by Andrew Ittner in misc on Thu 20 March 2003. Tags: commentary, government, news