Tuesday, May 17, 2011

A Weekend Without News

This weekend's Nightly News really bothered me because...oh wait a second. My bad. There was no Nightly News this weekend. Not on Saturday, not on Sunday. Because obviously, NBC believed that Golf was more important (meaning, of course, more profitable) than news. And here's the kicker: On Monday's Nightly News, Brian Williams and his producers thought it would be a good idea to spend two-and-a-half minutes on a story about how the high pollen count is causing bad allergies this season (featuring a doctor who seemed to be doing his best Gilbert Gottfried impression). That's great. Nightly News hasn't been on for three days--they have 72 hours of news to catch up on--and they're wasting time talking about pollen. What a dedicated news organization.

And surprise, surprise--Monday's Nightly News featured yet another story about Donald Trump. With the season finale of "Celebrity Apprentice" set to air this Sunday, that's obviously not a coincidence. Nightly News is the marketing arm for NBC Universal's entertainment and sports divisions. It's clear that Brian and his producers spent many hours in the Nightly News Situation Room (located deep in the bowels of 30 Rock) working closely with Trump's people figuring out exactly how Nightly News can best promote "Celebrity Apprentice" this week.

And then there was the story about the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour. This story deserved about twenty seconds of air time, but it was padded out to three minutes so that Brian and Tom Costello could continue to exploit Gabby Giffords. Hasn't this poor woman been through enough? Can't Brian and his staff just leave her alone already? Sadly, no. I'm sure that the Nightly News producers are already hard at work figuring out how to hack into the Memorial Hermann laser camera feed so they can broadcast live pirate video of her upcoming skull reattachment surgery. Brought to you by Tums.

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