CBS ruins the news… again

[Kevin M.]

De-emphasizing content in favor of catchy visual elements

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/cbs-news-24-7-streaming-whip-around-debut-1236048681/

I was going to school up in Washington in the 1990s when they debuted the “out of the box” format. For the uninitiated, out of the box was when anchors stood instead of sat, because standing gives viewers a greater sense of urgency/immediacy. After about six  months there was a legitimate breaking news story, and the standing anchors looked dazed and confused as they walked aimlessly/directionless through the newsroom, so instead of urgency viewers felt lost and disoriented. 

Ultimately journalism is about informative storytelling. I don’t know that a wall of jumbled images from around the world will lead to better stories being told. 

Kevin M. (RPCV)

[JW]

> Ultimately journalism is about informative storytelling. I don’t know that
> a wall of jumbled images from around the world will lead to better stories

> being told.

Exactly. It looks like they're trying to solve the usual problem of making continuous coverage seem interesting while no new information is being added.

A couple of notes from the article:

"CBS News has for decades served as the ne plus ultra of TV journalism. This is the news unit that has boasted of Cronkite, the unflappable presence who told the nation of the assassination of President Kennedy or of the toll of fighting in Vietnam; the longform newsmagazine '60 Minutes'; and heartwarming 'On The Road' vignettes from Steve Hartman."

Nothing against Hartman, but Charles Kuralt's name belongs there.

"New augmented-reality graphics the company is rolling out can put a meteorologist in the middle of a mountain pass, in a patch of fog or under replicas of the actual clouds floating by over a particular city. It can also be used to make a news host appear to be standing on an island in San Francisco Bay or alongside a major landmark about to undergo renovation."

This is more serious. A good way for a news operation to lose credibility is to act like their reporters are somewhere they're not.

[Dave Sikula]

I don't know if this is unique to the Bay Area or more than a regional phenomenon, but KPIX, the local CBS affiliate has an absolutely dreadful 11:00 newscast. The glammed-up host (I refuse to call her an anchor), hasn't been at the station that long, but still has the broadcast named after her ("The Late News with Sara Donchey") and is dressed as though she's going to a lower-grade nightclub. (When a female subs for her, the dress code is the same, but when it's a male, they're in the standard business suit and tie.) 

The show is usually extremely light on actual "news," preferring to concentrate on stories like (and this is no exaggeration) 10 minutes on a reporter who climbed the superstructure of a ship wearing a 3-D camera that viewers could connect to online, a long feature on a cricket game (where literally dozens of people were in the stands) and a series of long feature on a baseball team in Oakland full of players who aren't skilled enough to make it in organized ball (and whose games the station coincidentally shows on Friday nights). The sports guys are equally bad, either shouting through their truncated segments, acting as homers for the local teams, or doing long puff-pieces for them. (They devoted the whole half-hour to Willie Mays's death, but I gave them a pass on that, even though they really didn't give any insight or context about his life and career. It was a lot of repeated clips and interviews with locals saying "Willie was awesome.")

"If it's so awful, why do you watch?," I hear you ask. The reason is that the two weather guys are really good and informative. They are hampered by working on a 3D virtual model of the Bay Area that really doesn't add value but they tell me what to expect the following day.

I've been awfully tempted to criticize Ms. Donchey in broader fora, but am actually hampered by her grandmother being a friend of mine.

I don't want to get all "in my day" about it, but when I was growing up in LA, I could watch any of the local late newscasts -- well, maybe not KABC -- and come out with a reasonable sense of what had happened in the world that day. After watching this show, the best I can do with KPIX is to see a story about people drinking at a local brewpub.

Are there similar "newscasts," or are we just lucky here?

--Dave Sikula