Last Nov. 7, Nightly News correspondent Anne Thompson reported a glowing story about Yale quarterback Patrick Witt and the difficult choice he had to make between attending the interview for a Rhodes Scholarship and playing in the Harvard-Yale game, both of which would take place on Nov. 19. This story was a fawning two-and-a-half minute puff piece that made Witt seem like a combination of Captain America and Tim Tebow. A week later, Nightly News did a follow-up story (oh, how they love follow-up stories) in which we were told that Witt was withdrawing his Rhodes Scholarship application so he could play in the game against Harvard. What a great guy! Let's be clear--the ONLY reason Nightly News reported these stories is because the Harvard-Yale game would be airing on NBC Universal's Versus network (now known as the NBC Sports Network). Neither Brian Williams nor Anne Thompson cared the slightest bit about Patrick Witt or the choice he had to make. They were simply promoting an NBC property. This "news story" was nothing more than a two-and-a-half minute commercial for the Harvard-Yale game on Versus. That's not surprising. Virtually every story that airs on Nightly News comes with some sort of hidden agenda.
Last Friday and Saturday, The New York Times ran stories about Patrick Witt. According to the stories (both written by Richard Perez-Pena), at the time Witt voluntarily withdrew his Rhodes application, he "was no longer a contender for the Rhodes." That is because, "Several days earlier, according to people involved on both sides of the process, the Rhodes Trust had learned through unofficial channels that a fellow student had accused Witt of sexual assault. The Rhodes trust informed Yale and Witt that his candidacy was suspended unless the University decided to re-endorse it." The Times also reported that Witt had been arrested twice, information that might have caused the Rhodes evaluation committee to reject Witt's candidacy if they had known about it. According to the Times, "On Feb. 28, 2010, after an altercation over his being denied entry to Toad's Place, a nightclub near campus, Witt was charged by the New Haven police with third-degree criminal trespass and later paid a $90 fine on a lesser charge, creating a public disturbance." He had also been arrested On Dec. 9, 2007 while enrolled at the University of Nebraska for signing in to a residence hall under a false name, going upstairs without waiting for an escort, pushing and threatening a student official who tried to stop him and then running away from a police officer. (That information was paraphrased from the Times article.) "He was charged with obstructing government operations, which was dismissed when he completed a diversion program, the Lancaster County, Neb. attorney said."
Did Nightly News report this new information about Patrick Witt? Of course not. One obvious reason is because the Harvard-Yale game has already been played so Nightly News has no reason to promote it. But another reason they did not report this new information is that Brian Williams does not like to admit that Nightly News was wrong about a story. If the article is true, Nightly News was wrong about Witt's character and about his reasons for withdrawing his Rhodes candidacy. Brian Williams or Anne Thompson would have to do a huge mea culpa and admit that they had completely misjudged Witt. And everyone knows that Brian Williams does not do mea culpas. Of course, it is certainly possible that Witt is completely innocent of the sexual assault charges against him. But nevertheless, Nightly News should have at least reported the charges.
But there is another question here: Did the Nightly News producers know about Witt's sexual assault accusation and arrests before they aired one or both of their stories? Unfortunately, that question cannot be answered. But there is precedent for Nightly News failing to report information until it after was revealed by another source. On Jan. 20, 2009, Nightly News reported extensively on Pres. Obama's inauguration, including the performance by Yo-Yo Ma's quartet. But three days later, the Times reported that because of the cold weather, the quartet had not actually been playing--instead, they pretended to play (or "finger-synched") to pre-recorded music. The Times article also reported that the NBC producers were informed at the time that Yo-Yo Ma and his musicians were not actually playing because of the cold weather. But on Friday, Jan. 23, after the Times article came out, Brian Williams reported the "finger-synching" story. Brian had obviously known three days earlier that Ma was not playing live, but his feigned on-air surprise over the incident was reminiscent of Capt. Renault's famous line from "Casablanca": "I am shocked--SHOCKED--to find that gambling is going on in here!"
So if Nightly News would cover up the Yo-Yo Ma "finger-synching" incident, there's every reason to suspect that they would also cover up the fact that Patrick Witt's Rhodes Scholarship candidacy had already been withdrawn by the Rhodes evaluation committee even as Witt claimed that he was voluntarily withdrawing in order to play against Harvard. Did Nightly News conceal information about Witt on the days they were reporting the story? We'll never know. But at the very least, they should have reported the new information when it came out in the Times last Friday. That would have been the ethical thing to do. But, of course, Brian Williams is motivated by ratings, not ethics.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Surprise! NBC Nightly News Promotes McDonald's. Again.
The final report on Sunday's NBC Nightly News (1/29/12) was a two-minute "news story" about fast food restaurants that are now staying open later to accommodate the schedules of their customers. First of all, there is no definition of "news" that would include this ridiculous story. But, of course, the producers weren't interested in presenting a news story. Rather, their intent was to promote some of NBC's best fast food sponsors. The story began with ad clips from Taco Bell and Wendy's--both of which are regular advertisers on some of the many Comcast/NBC Universal networks. But the rest of the story focused on McDonald's. This story contained more than a minute's worth of gratuitous McDonald's footage--interiors, exteriors, franchise owners, customers, workers, food--and even included an extended shot of correspondent Mike Taibbi standing in front of a McDonald's in a way that clearly displayed the McDonald's name and logo. And just to make sure we didn't miss the point, Taibbi then told us that, "McDonald's now has 40% of its restaurants open 24 hours--up from 30% seven years ago." That statement--and the entire report--sounded suspiciously like a commercial. Obviously, the Nightly News producers' goal in running this story was to inform the viewers that McDonald's has new extended hours so we should rush out later and get some of those delicious Big Macs, Quarter Pounders and fries.
Without a doubt, one of the main jobs of Brian Williams, his producers and correspondents is to use Nightly News to plug NBC sponsors. This happens over and over and over again. GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Cheerios, Bayer, Walmart, Frito-Lay, Chrysler, Chevy...the list goes on and on. But no company gets more on-air plugs from Nightly News than McDonald's. Brian Williams and his producers and correspondents have a long track record of promoting and endorsing McDonald's on Nightly News. This isn't surprising. With the recent acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast, the new Comcast/NBC Universal mega-conglomerate controls more than twenty national or regional networks and cable channels. In addition to NBC, MSNBC and CNBC, they own Bravo, Chiller, Oxygen, Sleuth, Syfy, Telemundo, Mun2, The Weather Channel, USA, E!, SportsNet New York, Exercise TV, G4, The Golf Channel, PBS Kids Sprout, The Style Network, Versus and New England Cable News. And those are only the ones I know about. I can only imagine how much money McDonald's spends each year advertising on all these Comcast/NBC stations. Is it $50 million? $75 million? $100 million? Who knows. Let's just say it's a lot. So with McDonald's spending all this money with Comcast/NBC, it makes perfect sense that Brian Williams would act as an on-air spokesperson for McDonald's. It's obvious that Brian and the Nightly News producers work closely with the NBC News ad sales department and the McDonald's ad and promotions agencies to find the most advantageous ways to feature the Golden Arches on their broadcast. It's also obvious that the McDonald's press releases read by Brian, Lester Holt and the NBC correspondents on the air are actually part of paid commercial packages purchased by McDonald's. Instead of just buying commercials, McDonald's and other companies are encouraged by NBC to buy combination ad packages (not unlike McDonald's combination meals) that include commercials as well as glowing, fawning news stories about their products. After all, hearing Brian Williams enthusiastically plug McDonald's french fries carries a lot more weight than a plain old commercial.
On the 11/17/11 Nightly News, right in the middle of a story about Congress's decision to categorize pizza as a vegetable, correspondent/shill Anne Thompson took a ten-second break to read a McDonald's commercial. With a huge McDonald's logo next to her, Thompson told us that, "McDonald's got the message--reducing french fries and adding fruit to its happy meals." This had absolutely nothing to do with the story about pizza being a vegetable--it was just another opportunity for a Nightly News correspondent to toss in a plug the Golden Arches. It's also interesting to note that right before Thompson read her McDonald's commercial, she said, "First Lady Michelle Obama is on a mission to change that--urging America's kids to exercise and encouraging healthy eating." Thompson's statement was accompanied by video of Mrs. Obama. This is no accident. Showing Mrs. Obama right before a McDonald's product placement is actually a very calculated and crafty way for the Nightly News producers to imply that Mrs. Obama endorses McDonald's. This has happened before. On the 7/26/11 Nightly News, Brian Williams read this 30-second promo for McDonald's: "McDonald's said today that it's taking steps to make Happy Meals healthier. The company is cutting the size of the french fry portion in half for starters and adding apple slices to every meal. The new meals will have about 20% fewer calories--coming in at under 600 calories total. First Lady Michelle Obama, who campaigns, of course, for better nutrition, put out a statement today calling this a good step." Again--it was clearly the intent of Brian and his producers to imply that Mrs. Obama was endorsing McDonald's. (As Brian read this, the McDonald's logo was onscreen for the entire thirty seconds, along with the words "Healthy Choices" and a picture of a Happy Meal.)
Here are some other examples of how McDonald's has been aggressively promoted (or protected from negative publicity) on Nightly News:
5/18/11--Brian personally defended McDonald's against criticism from parenting organizations and nutritional advocacy groups that accused McDonald's of unfairly using the Ronald McDonald character to attract children to their high sodium, high cholesterol, high fat food. In the story, Brian said that this criticism "seems a little harsh". So much for anchor neutrality.
5/9/11--Brian took thirty seconds to tell us that McDonald's is spending more than $1 billion to upgrade their restaurants. "Look for wooden tables, muted colors and faux leather seats coming soon to a Mac's near you. And you can get fries with that." Is it just me, or is that a commercial?
3/8/11--During a story promoting Subway Sandwich Shops (you didn't think McDonald's was the only fast food restaurant Brian promoted, did you?) as now having more U.S. outlets than McDonald's, Brian was quick to tell us that McDonald's still makes more money annually--$24 billion to $15 billion.
12/7/10--A story about how San Francisco is banning toys that come with children's fast food meals began with a cute segment about a woman who collects Happy Meal toys. The rest of this 2:30 "news story" (which was really just a commercial for McDonald's) contained clips of actual McDonald's commercials and non-stop footage of the McDonald's logo, restaurants and food.
11/8/10--The lead story on The CBS Evening News was a study released by the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity detailing the inappropriate ways that fast food chains market their unhealthy food to children. Nightly News did not report this story--obviously as a courtesy to their pals at McDonald's.
9/3/10--The CBS Evening News reported that Consumer Reports rated 53 different fast food and chain restaurant hamburgers on taste and attractiveness, and McDonald's came in dead last. Needless to say, Nightly News did not report this story, either.
7/2/10--A Nightly News profile of LeBron James included clips from his McDonald's commercials.
6/14/10--Lester Holt gave us the important news that McDonald's will now be offering free Wi-Fi at their restaurants.
2/4/10--While reading a 25 second promotional piece about Heinz Ketchup's exciting new packaging, Brian also threw in a gratuitous plug for McDonald's.
10/22/09--During a piece about women in the workplace, Nightly News spent 75 seconds profiling Jan Fields, the Chief Operating Officer of McDonald's USA. The story gave her ample time to talk about things like McDonald's "world famous fries". Ms. Fields is now the president of McDonald's USA--no doubt thanks in part to her ability to manipulate NBC News into allowing her to plug her greasy burgers and fries.
5/5/09--In what may be the most shameless and blatant plug ever, Nightly News did a two-minute story whose sole purpose was to announce the launch of McDonald's new gourmet coffees to compete with Starbucks. Ann Curry called McDonald's coffee a "delicious brew".
So if anyone thinks that all these plugs for McDonald's are just random and haphazard (as opposed to paid product placements) then there's a bridge across the East River that I'd like to sell you.
Without a doubt, one of the main jobs of Brian Williams, his producers and correspondents is to use Nightly News to plug NBC sponsors. This happens over and over and over again. GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Cheerios, Bayer, Walmart, Frito-Lay, Chrysler, Chevy...the list goes on and on. But no company gets more on-air plugs from Nightly News than McDonald's. Brian Williams and his producers and correspondents have a long track record of promoting and endorsing McDonald's on Nightly News. This isn't surprising. With the recent acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast, the new Comcast/NBC Universal mega-conglomerate controls more than twenty national or regional networks and cable channels. In addition to NBC, MSNBC and CNBC, they own Bravo, Chiller, Oxygen, Sleuth, Syfy, Telemundo, Mun2, The Weather Channel, USA, E!, SportsNet New York, Exercise TV, G4, The Golf Channel, PBS Kids Sprout, The Style Network, Versus and New England Cable News. And those are only the ones I know about. I can only imagine how much money McDonald's spends each year advertising on all these Comcast/NBC stations. Is it $50 million? $75 million? $100 million? Who knows. Let's just say it's a lot. So with McDonald's spending all this money with Comcast/NBC, it makes perfect sense that Brian Williams would act as an on-air spokesperson for McDonald's. It's obvious that Brian and the Nightly News producers work closely with the NBC News ad sales department and the McDonald's ad and promotions agencies to find the most advantageous ways to feature the Golden Arches on their broadcast. It's also obvious that the McDonald's press releases read by Brian, Lester Holt and the NBC correspondents on the air are actually part of paid commercial packages purchased by McDonald's. Instead of just buying commercials, McDonald's and other companies are encouraged by NBC to buy combination ad packages (not unlike McDonald's combination meals) that include commercials as well as glowing, fawning news stories about their products. After all, hearing Brian Williams enthusiastically plug McDonald's french fries carries a lot more weight than a plain old commercial.
On the 11/17/11 Nightly News, right in the middle of a story about Congress's decision to categorize pizza as a vegetable, correspondent/shill Anne Thompson took a ten-second break to read a McDonald's commercial. With a huge McDonald's logo next to her, Thompson told us that, "McDonald's got the message--reducing french fries and adding fruit to its happy meals." This had absolutely nothing to do with the story about pizza being a vegetable--it was just another opportunity for a Nightly News correspondent to toss in a plug the Golden Arches. It's also interesting to note that right before Thompson read her McDonald's commercial, she said, "First Lady Michelle Obama is on a mission to change that--urging America's kids to exercise and encouraging healthy eating." Thompson's statement was accompanied by video of Mrs. Obama. This is no accident. Showing Mrs. Obama right before a McDonald's product placement is actually a very calculated and crafty way for the Nightly News producers to imply that Mrs. Obama endorses McDonald's. This has happened before. On the 7/26/11 Nightly News, Brian Williams read this 30-second promo for McDonald's: "McDonald's said today that it's taking steps to make Happy Meals healthier. The company is cutting the size of the french fry portion in half for starters and adding apple slices to every meal. The new meals will have about 20% fewer calories--coming in at under 600 calories total. First Lady Michelle Obama, who campaigns, of course, for better nutrition, put out a statement today calling this a good step." Again--it was clearly the intent of Brian and his producers to imply that Mrs. Obama was endorsing McDonald's. (As Brian read this, the McDonald's logo was onscreen for the entire thirty seconds, along with the words "Healthy Choices" and a picture of a Happy Meal.)
Here are some other examples of how McDonald's has been aggressively promoted (or protected from negative publicity) on Nightly News:
5/18/11--Brian personally defended McDonald's against criticism from parenting organizations and nutritional advocacy groups that accused McDonald's of unfairly using the Ronald McDonald character to attract children to their high sodium, high cholesterol, high fat food. In the story, Brian said that this criticism "seems a little harsh". So much for anchor neutrality.
5/9/11--Brian took thirty seconds to tell us that McDonald's is spending more than $1 billion to upgrade their restaurants. "Look for wooden tables, muted colors and faux leather seats coming soon to a Mac's near you. And you can get fries with that." Is it just me, or is that a commercial?
3/8/11--During a story promoting Subway Sandwich Shops (you didn't think McDonald's was the only fast food restaurant Brian promoted, did you?) as now having more U.S. outlets than McDonald's, Brian was quick to tell us that McDonald's still makes more money annually--$24 billion to $15 billion.
12/7/10--A story about how San Francisco is banning toys that come with children's fast food meals began with a cute segment about a woman who collects Happy Meal toys. The rest of this 2:30 "news story" (which was really just a commercial for McDonald's) contained clips of actual McDonald's commercials and non-stop footage of the McDonald's logo, restaurants and food.
11/8/10--The lead story on The CBS Evening News was a study released by the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy & Obesity detailing the inappropriate ways that fast food chains market their unhealthy food to children. Nightly News did not report this story--obviously as a courtesy to their pals at McDonald's.
9/3/10--The CBS Evening News reported that Consumer Reports rated 53 different fast food and chain restaurant hamburgers on taste and attractiveness, and McDonald's came in dead last. Needless to say, Nightly News did not report this story, either.
7/2/10--A Nightly News profile of LeBron James included clips from his McDonald's commercials.
6/14/10--Lester Holt gave us the important news that McDonald's will now be offering free Wi-Fi at their restaurants.
2/4/10--While reading a 25 second promotional piece about Heinz Ketchup's exciting new packaging, Brian also threw in a gratuitous plug for McDonald's.
10/22/09--During a piece about women in the workplace, Nightly News spent 75 seconds profiling Jan Fields, the Chief Operating Officer of McDonald's USA. The story gave her ample time to talk about things like McDonald's "world famous fries". Ms. Fields is now the president of McDonald's USA--no doubt thanks in part to her ability to manipulate NBC News into allowing her to plug her greasy burgers and fries.
5/5/09--In what may be the most shameless and blatant plug ever, Nightly News did a two-minute story whose sole purpose was to announce the launch of McDonald's new gourmet coffees to compete with Starbucks. Ann Curry called McDonald's coffee a "delicious brew".
So if anyone thinks that all these plugs for McDonald's are just random and haphazard (as opposed to paid product placements) then there's a bridge across the East River that I'd like to sell you.
Friday, January 27, 2012
NBC Nightly News Show Notes--1/21 Through 1/27 (Revised)
Brian Williams spent an awful lot of time this week promoting the Rock Center Republican debate and NBC's coverage of the State of the Union address. We got our fill of Gabby Giffords and saw a rare triple flag. Two U.S. Presidents were misquoted on the same broadcast and Brian told us all about bird shit. Here are some of the great things that happened on Nightly News this week:
Sat. Jan. 21--At the beginning of his report about the Romney campaign, correspondent Peter Alexander said "good morning" to Lester Holt. At 6:35 PM. And he never even bothered to correct himself. I think Alexander should switch to a lower dose of medication.
***Brian Williams made a rare appearance on a Saturday edition of Nightly News. Was it because of a breaking news story? Was it because he had a special scoop? Was it because he wanted to help out the depleted Nightly News staff? Of course not. He appeared on the broadcast (from Orlando) for one selfish reason--to promote Monday's Republican debate in Tampa, which he would be moderating as part of Rock Center. Rock Center's ratings have been anemic so far, rarely drawing more than four million viewers. Last November, Hollywoodreporter.com even featured an article titled, "NBC's 'Rock Center' Ratings on Par With Canceled 'Playboy Club'." (An excerpt: "More jarring are comparisons to the former time slot occupant, which was ejected from the lineup on Oct. 3. In the 18-49 demo, Episode 2 of 'Rock Center' was down 23 percent from 'The Playboy Club’s' 1.3 rating [Sept. 26].") So folding Monday's debate into Rock Center is just a desperate attempt by Brian to boost his prime time show's sad ratings. It should be obvious to anyone watching that the only thing that could get Brian to give up part of his Saturday is the opportunity to promote one of his TV shows. Naturally, Brian's segment ended with a full-screen promo for Monday's Rock Center debate, accompanied by Brian's desperate plea for people to tune in. By the way, Nightly News devoted the entire first segment of Saturday's broadcast--12 full minutes--to the Republican candidates. Was this because the producers believed the candidates were a really important story? Don't be silly. The candidates were given that much air time solely as a way to promote Monday's NBC debate. As always, Nightly News allocates coverage based not on the news value of a story, but based on how much a story can help promote the network's other shows.
***Lester then spent a total of four minutes on two separate stories about the "Winter Blast hitting millions of Americans from Seattle all the way to Boston." He also told us that "much of the country is now covered in ice and snow." Really? In January? Who ever would have guessed? And the obligatory Weather Channel map showed these snow totals across the Northeast: Cleveland--2.1 inches, Binghamton--2.7 inches, Philadelphia--2.3 inches, New York--4.3 inches and Pittsburgh--4 inches. Two to four inches of snow? In the Northeast? Not exactly remarkable. But weather reporting is easy and cheap--just set up a camera and film the correspondent standing in snow--so Nightly News devotes a big chunk of its time to weather-related non-stories like this. And let's not forget that NBC Universal paid $3.5 billion for the Weather Channel, so they make damn sure to use it. Every single night.
Sun. Jan. 22--The lead story was about Gabby Giffords' decision to step down from Congress. Obviously, the NBC News research department has informed Brian and his producers that stories about Giffords deliver high ratings, so they put her on the broadcast as often as possible. This story included several quotes from Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner that were shown on-screen and enclosed in quotation marks (this will matter in a few moments).
***As part of Nightly News's rabid promotion for that night's debate, Chuck Todd did a 1:45 "debate preview". That's really just a weaselly code phrase for "debate promotion". I've never seen anyone at Nightly News do a "debate preview" for a debate that was airing on another network.
***We then saw nearly four minutes' worth of stories about Joe Paterno's death. One of those stories featured some quotes by Paterno that were shown on-screen but were not enclosed in quotation marks. So Nancy Pelosi's and John Boehner's earlier statements were given quotation marks, but Joe Paterno's statements were not. I guess the Nightly News producers were too busy promoting that night's debate to bother with anything as trivial as quotation marks.
***NBC News-shill Robert Bazell did a 2:10 story about the "hidden dangers" of osteoporosis. What hidden dangers? The story didn't mention anything of the sort. Get regular checkups and bone density tests when ordered by a doctor. That's the entire gist of this story. "Hidden dangers" is just an alarmist phrase the producers throw in to spice up a bland story and make it seem more urgent. So although there are no hidden dangers, there were some hidden promotions. Bazell's story included a gratuitous shot of a GE Lunar Prodigy Scanner. GE is a minority owner (and former majority owner) of NBC, so Bazell likes to include their equipment in his stories as often as possible. And at one point during the story, Bazell said, "But if the test finds thinning bones...many experts say the woman needs treatment with medication and frequent follow-up scans to reduce the risk of fractures...." As he said this, we were shown a close-up shot of bottles of Actonel, Fosamax and Boniva (bone-strengthening medications). Boniva was once a major Nightly News advertiser and I'm betting that all three medications are heavy advertisers on some (or all) of the 20 or so Comcast/NBC Universal networks. These drugs are manufactured by pharmaceutical heavyweights Warner Chilcott (Actonel), Merck (Fosamax) and GlaxoSmithKline (Boniva), and Bazell is always more than happy to use his reports to promote drugs made by regular NBC Universal advertisers. In fact, promoting NBC's pharmaceutical sponsors seems to be Bazell's main job at NBC News. There was really no point to this story other than to promote these drugs. Great job, Robert.
***CNBC's Brian Shactman presented a report (called "Package Wars") about the intense competition between UPS and FedEx. Great, but how on earth does this qualify as news? It doesn't. It was really just a 2:25 promo for a one-hour special (titled "Inside The Package Wars") that would be appearing the following night on CNBC. Wait a second--Shactman's CNBC special airs at 9:00 PM Monday--the exact same time as the Rock Center debate! OMG--what should I watch? I'll have to consult my Magic 8 Ball. By the way, "Package Wars" sounds like a title Brian Williams came up with. Whenever he appears with Letterman, Leno or Fallon, he inevitably brings the conversation back around to male genitalia. On David Letterman's 1/3/11 show, Brian felt compelled to tell us that his recent trip to California had included a pat-down by an airport security official who went "right after Dave and the twins." Then he twice used the word "shmegegge" as a euphemism for his genitals. And on Jimmy Fallon's 2/5/10 show, Brian described the luge bodysuit as "the most package-enhancing outfit...." Package wars, indeed. And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict that Shactman's CNBC special is extremely flattering to both UPS and FedEx, since both are major NBC sponsors.
***The night's final story was "an incredible story" (according to Lester) about a nurse who donated a kidney to one of her patients. That's a really nice thing to do. But it isn't news. So why was it given two minutes on Nightly News? Because these types of sappy, emotional human interest stories test extremely well with focus groups and get very high ratings with viewers. And high ratings are without a doubt the most important thing to Brian and his producers. Maybe they should have called this story "Kidney Wars".
Mon. Jan. 23--Brian and his producers continued their full-court press to promote that night's Rock Center debate by devoting the broadcast's first eight-and-a-half minutes to the Republican candidates. This included another "debate preview" with Chuck Todd and David Gregory (see previous day's notes for a definition of "debate preview"). At one point, Andrea Mitchell reported on Newt Gingrich's super PAC, American Solutions. She told us that the super PAC's were not allowed to be used for self-promotion. That's pretty ironic considering that her report was actually part of Nightly News's self-promotion for that night's debate.
***After exhaustively promoting that night's debate, Brian handed the show over to Savannah Guthrie in New York so he could take time to prepare for his rigorous questioning of the candidates. Then we were treated to another Gabby Giffords story because...well, you know.
***Guthrie took 30 seconds to tell us that men may have a higher tolerance for pain than women but then suggested that men may actually be lying about their pain tolerance. Oh, okay. Thanks for that.
***Guthrie then spent 30 seconds on the first of many "Super Bowl previews" that we will see on Nightly News in the next two weeks. As is the case with the "debate previews", "Super Bowl previews" are just promotions for the game, which will be shown (of course) on NBC. Funny thing--I don't recall Nightly News doing any Super Bowl previews when the game was on CBS or Fox. Wonder why. This was followed by 38 seconds of the President doing his best Al Green impression at the Apollo Theater. Now we can get it as a ringtone! Awesome!
***The broadcast ended with a 1:50 story about a Texas family that was rescued from the water by good samaritans after their plane crashed off the coast of Honduras. The story featured a clip from "Today", which is the only reason I can come up with to explain why the Nightly News producers would devote nearly two minutes to this non-story.
***Meanwhile, also on Monday, the European Union imposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran (including a ban on oil purchases) because of their concerns about Iran's nuclear program. Four Kenyan politicians (including two presidential candidates) were ordered to stand trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague for crimes against humanity stemming from their involvement in violence that took place after the 2007 elections. And over the weekend in Nigeria, the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram was responsible for ethnic violence that resulted in the deaths of at least 184 people. But Nightly News did not report any of these stories because Brian and his producers don't care about what's going on in the rest of the world, especially in Africa. Brian desperately wants his viewers to believe that Nightly News reports the news in a color-blind manner, but his continued insistence on ignoring Africa paints a very different picture.
Tues. Jan. 24--Despite important news stories taking place around the world, Nightly News's lead story is about Mitt Romney's tax returns. Wow, it's tough being part of the 1%--and no one knows that better than Brian Williams. I wonder--when are we going to see Brian's tax returns? This story featured a clip from MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports", but the on-screen credit line did not enclose the show's title in quotes.
***The next story was a 2:40 recap of the previous night's debate which--surprise--took place on NBC. On Jan. 7, the candidates debated on ABC, but no one at Nightly News ever mentioned that debate even once. Meanwhile, Nightly News spent the equivalent time of an entire broadcast promoting and recapping the NBC debate. Without a doubt, Nightly News is the most shamelessly self-promoting news broadcast on the air. And like a petulant child, they refuse to even acknowledge events that take place on other networks. By the way, this story featured a clip of Newt Gingrich from "Fox & Friends" and the Nightly News producers used quotes around the show's title in the on-screen credit line. So "Andrea Mitchell Reports" doesn't get quotes, but "Fox & Friends" does. Go figure.
***Next, Chuck Todd, Kelly O'Donnell and David Gregory spent four minutes previewing the President's State of the Union address. It goes without saying that they were promoting NBC's broadcast of the speech. At one point during his story, Chuck Todd misquoted an excerpt from the speech the President would deliver later that night. Todd used the phrase "...skills for the American workers..." but the on-screen transcript read "...skills for American workers...." Apparently, Todd felt that he could improve upon the President's speech by adding a word to it. Maybe he should become the President's speechwriter.
***Brian then spent a minute-and-a-half raving about the Northern Lights. "If you live in the Northern U.S. or Canada, you're in for what could be a heck of a light show tonight...." Thanks for the heads-up, dude.
***This next story was quite a treat. Brian spent 2:15 personally narrating a report about some John F. Kennedy tapes that were just released. Brian fancies himself a historian, just like Newt Gingrich fancies himself a historian. I guess there must be something about people with huge egos that makes them think of themselves as historians. Unfortunately, historian Brian allowed his producers to misquote Pres. Kennedy. During a clip in which Kennedy was talking about the advantages of filming the 1964 Democratic Convention in color, he said, "Probably a million people watching it in color and it would have an effect...be quite an effect on the convention." But the accompanying on-screen transcription omitted the word "people". So for the second time in the same broadcast, someone from Nightly News has misquoted a president. Chuck Todd added a word and Brian's producers removed a word. Everyone at Nightly News must be so proud of their attention to detail.
***The final story was a 2:20 "news report" about the Oscar nominations. The story featured two full minutes of movie clips from "The Artist", "Hugo", "The Descendants", "Moneyball", "The Iron Lady", "Bridesmaids" and "The Help". (Clips from "The Artist" alone totaled 51 seconds.) Naturally, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Meryl Streep were given plenty of air time because they're audience favorites, as well as Brian's favorites. This wasn't a news story, it was a pander-fest. It's like watching movie previews in a theater. Brian knows that his viewers like entertainment stories much more than news stories, so he's always eager to oblige with garbage like this. Nightly News airs these movie-clip-compilation stories often--this is the fourth such story they have done in just the past two months. On Nov. 25, it was a story about holiday movies for kids. On Dec. 18, it was a story about nostalgia in movies. And on Jan. 1, it was a story about how 2011 was a bad year at the box office. (Those are only the multiple-clip stories--I didn't include all the stories that feature just one or two movie clips since those would have taken too long to list). This is also the fourth Nightly News story in five weeks to include clips from "The Artist". Clearly, that is Brian's favorite movie of the season. Last year, Brian's favorite movie was "The King's Speech", as evidenced by the four times it appeared in Nightly News stories. While it's certainly the goal of Brian and his producers to boost their show's ratings by showing the viewers mindless entertainment, it is also their goal to appease the film studios by promoting their films. The film industry is a major advertiser on NBC Universal networks, and this is Brian's way of thanking them for all the advertising dollars they have spent with NBC over the years. But of course there could be another, more sinister motive here. What if NBC's advertising department is actually selling space in Nightly News stories to the film studios? Did the Weinstein Company pay for those four stories Nightly News did on "The Artist" or the three stories they did on "The Iron Lady"? Of course, we'll never know for sure. But you can probably guess what I think.
Wed. Jan. 25--Wow! Another Gabby Giffords story! The third one in four days. That makes nearly eight minutes worth of Giffords stories that we've seen this week. It would be an understatement to say that Brian is exploiting Giffords and milking her for all she's worth because her stories bring him good ratings. By the way, this was a rare triple flag story. Anyone who watches Nightly News knows that they show more U.S. flags than any other network news broadcast--including anything on the Fox News Channel. Animated flags are constantly waving behind Brian or Lester--often for the entire first half of the broadcast. Animated flags are also used as the background for political stories, military stories and any other stories in which the producers can get away with it. Nightly News correspondents always make a point of standing near a flag when reporting so that the flag is in the shot. Politicians are always filmed from the angle that shows off the most flags. And any time Nightly News covers a disaster--flood, hurricane, earthquake--the producers send the camera operators off to get as many gratuitous flag shots as possible. The crown jewel, of course, is a shot of a tattered American flag on top of a pile of rubble. That's the money shot. That's gold for the Nightly News producers. (Never mind that the flags are often planted there by those same producers.) Brian and his producers love flags because it's a way for them to disingenuously appeal to the viewers' sense of rah-rah gung-ho eagle-soaring God-Bless-America faux patriotism. Flags are merely part of Brian's calculated scheme to pander to the NASCAR demographic. Using flags as a ratings-generating prop is, of course, shameless, but since when does Brian ever care about shame? He only cares about his Nielsen numbers. Often, the producers show two flags on screen at the same time. Because apparently they love America twice as much as any of the other networks. But Wednesday's Gabby Giffords story contained a rare triple flag shot. As Brian introduced the story, there was, of course, the obligatory animated flag waving behind him. There was also a clip over his left shoulder of Giffords being greeted by John Boehner at the House Speaker's podium, with a huge flag as the background. And below the clip, there was a flag in the shape of Arizona. I guess that was in case anyone forgot what country Arizona was in. Triple flag! Awesome! Suck on that Scott Pelley and Diane Sawyer!
***In the Giffords story, we were shown clips of speeches made by the various congressional leaders. Eric Cantor was identified as the House Majority Leader. Nancy Pelosi was identified as the House Minority Leader. And Steny Hoyer--well, he was identified only as a Representative from Maryland. But Hoyer is the House Minority Whip--the second most powerful post in the minority party. So if the Nightly News producers identified Cantor and Pelosi by their leadership positions, why didn't they also identify Hoyer by his leadership position? The answer is because no one at Nightly News cares about consistency.
***Brian ended the Giffords story this way: "An incredible scene there today Kelly O'Donnell on the Hill lucky to witness it all...." Incredible? Really? Isn't that a little overblown? And why is Kelly O'Donnell lucky to have witnessed it? She has a press pass. She's NBC's congressional correspondent. It's her job to report stories like this. Luck has nothing to do with it, you idiot.
***Brian began the next story by saying, "And we must now report on politics once again...." Must? Why must he? Who's ordering him to? What a ridiculous thing to say.
***Next, Brian reported on the extreme weather. Again. Here's what he said to The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore: "Jim, when you and I meet up after a bad weather event it's the spring, it's the summer or fall, but it is rarely winter." As always, Brian used a personal pronoun to turn a news story into a story about himself. Because the news is always about Brian.
***The next story was a 2:15 waste of time about whether grief should be classified as a mental disorder and the possibility of a "grief pill" to relieve the symptoms. Really. This was a news story on a network news broadcast. I can't believe it either. Another idiotic story from the idiotic Anne Thompson. Has she ever reported a story that actually mattered? This "news report" was padded with ridiculous stock videos and photos of grieving, crying people. The final shot was a black and white photo of a sad elderly woman with her head in her hands. She must have been watching Nightly News.
***We were treated to a atory about school lunches becoming healthier. The story began, of course, with Michelle Obama. The Nightly News producers insert Mrs. Obama into as many stories as possible because she's very popular and stories featuring her get high ratings.
***Brian then read an obituary for actor James Farentino. Seriously? James Farentino? No disrespect, but his death is not exactly network news material. But it gave Brian an opportunity to show some of his old TV clips and that's what really matters. Entertainment is always more important than news on Nightly News.
***After that, Brian reported the breaking news story of the Australian Transport Minister who gave a speech that he had plagiarized from the movie "The American President". I think you know what came next. That's right--a clip of Michael Douglas reciting the speech in the movie. Brian has a huge man-crush on Douglas and he makes a point of including Douglas's movie and TV clips on Nightly News as often as possible. It had already been two long weeks since Brian had last showed a Michael Douglas clip (Jan. 11--"Wall Street") so obviously it was time for another one. There is no doubt that the only reason Brian chose to report this story was because it allowed him to show the Douglas clip.
***Brian the treated us to some photos of the Northern Lights. Thanks.
***The final story was a testimonial to correspondent George Lewis, who had just retired. Here's how Brian began the story: "Finally here tonight, as you know, we like to run a family operation around here and tonight we have news about a member of our family--long time NBC News correspondent George Lewis is retiring today after 42 years with NBC News." A family operation? What a load of crap. NBC News is a conglomerate within a conglomerate within a conglomerate. They hire and fire people based on business decisions, nothing else. Except for Brian, of course. He gets to hire incompetent people like Luke Russert because of who his dad was. I guess that's what Brian meant by "a family operation". And of course, NBC News will hire any child of a former president as long as they can read and write.
***This night, Nightly News did not even mention the tumultuous events going on in Syria or Nigeria. But we learned all about extreme weather, grief as a mental disorder and Michael Douglas's "American President" speech. Thanks, Brian.
Thurs. Jan. 26--This is how Brian introduced a story about new rules governing airfares: "New rules for airlines to take effect today and what's in it for all those of US who fly." Those of us who fly. Once again, Brian has changed a news story into a story about him.
***A story about the Republican presidential candidates featured a clip of Newt Gingrich on "The Today Show". Because, as always, promoting "Today" is one of Brian's most important jobs.
***During a story on the Costa Concordia, Brian said, "They may never find the 19 souls still missing...." Souls? What is wrong with him? Why doesn't he just say "bodies"?
***Brian then spent nearly a minute reporting the important story that Vanna White and Pat Sajak used to appear on "Wheel of Fortune" while drunk. Because Brian is a professional journalist. He began the story this way: "Game show fans are reacting in mock-horror after WE all learned this week the dirty little secret behind the 'Wheel of Fortune' in the early days...." We. Again, it's about Brian. Always.
***This next story is difficult for me to write about. Brian took a minute to tell us about two brothers-in-law whose boat sank off the coast of Nantucket three years ago and eventually drifted all the way to Spain. Here's how Brian ended the story: "There once was a boat from Nantucket/That bobbed across the sea like a bucket/Hit by winds and heavy rain/It drifted clear to Spain/Now they must decide whether to chuck it." Sorry, but there's no other way to say this: Brian Williams is a fucking moron. Obviously, Brian chose to report this story for only one reason--because it gave him an opportunity to show off what he sadly believes passes for a sense of humor. Now, even if Brian actually was funny, that still wouldn't be an excuse to ignore real news in order to report these types of idiotic garbage stories. His pathetic attempts at humor are just painful to watch. It is truly shameful that a network anchor would stoop this low just to satisfy his desperate need to be liked.
***Brian took thirty seconds to show us some new high definition photos from space. He referred to Earth as "our big blue marble". He told us that, "There are no blue or red states visible from space." Gosh, he's a deep thinker.
***The broadcast ended with a story about Samantha Garvey. I mean another story about Samantha Garvey. She's the homeless high school student who was a semi-finalist for the Intel Science prize. This is the third Samantha Garvey story that Nightly News has reported in two weeks. She's the new Mary Thornberry. Garvey seems like a nice kid, but there is absolutely nothing about her that qualifies as news. It's just another in an endless line of sappy, feel-good stories that Nightly News reports over and over and over again. These stories test well in focus groups and get high ratings, so the producers pack the broadcast with them. And then they do follow-ups and more follow-ups and follow-ups to the follow-ups. Last February, Nightly News did seven stories (totaling 14 minutes) on Mary Thornberry--the American woman who was trapped in her Cairo apartment during the Tahrir Square uprising. So Cairo was erupting in violence and Nightly News was reporting on Mary Thornberry. Unbelievable. I'm guessing that Samantha Garvey will get at least as many stories as Mary Thornberry. Maybe more. By the way, the story featured a clip of Garvey on "The Today Show"--the second time on the broadcast that a "Today" clip was used.
Fri. Jan. 27--In a story about hard times in Pontiac, Michigan, one of the residents interviewed was identified in a graphic as "Charles Mason Ritired Auto Worker". What exactly was he "ritired" from?
***Brian showed us some nifty time-lapse video of construction at a London Olympics site and informed us that the Olympics begin in six months. Let the Games begin! Not the Olympic Games--I mean the promotional games. Nightly News will be bombarding us with Olympics-related promotions over the next six months. During the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Nightly News aired an incredible 160 minutes of Olympics-related stories whose only purpose was to coerce us to watch the Games on the various NBC networks.
***Brian then narrated a 20 second obituary for Robert Hegyes, who played Juan Epstein on "Welcome Back, Kotter". Again, no offense intended, but if James Farentino doesn't deserve an obituary on Nightly News, then Robert Hegyes certainly doesn't deserve one, either. But what really matters is that Brian got to show some "Kotter" clips. More entertainment + less news = better ratings.
***Brian spent another 20 seconds showing us a photo of an infant sleeping on his father's military uniform--taken a month after the father had died. So? Are we supposed to cry? Brian should be fined by the FCC for wasting our time with this garbage.
***Then Brian told us about the first all-female crew to fly a Navy combat mission. I really wish he would keep his sexual fantasies to himself. Brian will report any story about the U.S. Military because he is the propaganda minister for the U.S. Armed Forces.
***After that, Brian treated us to yet another story about the Northern Lights. This is the third story this week about the Northern Lights. He called them "The Greatest Show on Earth". I'm pretty certain that no one would ever use that phrase to describe Nightly News.
***The final story of the night was about bird shit. I'm not kidding. Here's how Brian introduced the story: "Finally tonight we're gonna take you to a town with a big problem. It's in northern Kentucky where good people live and these days they live with a lot of birds. They weren't looking for birds--they like birds enough--but there's birds and there's the birds that have moved into this town along with everything birds bring with them--the stuff that comes out the back and the noise that comes out the front." Really? The stuff that comes out the back? Brian is clearly obsessed with animal shit. On Dec. 8, he reported a "news story" about a squirrel that had set off a fire alarm in a Florida elementary school. He ended the story by saying, "The good news--pest control has been notified. The bad news--those weren't raisins on the rice pudding." With all his talk about male genitalia and animal shit, I can only imagine what kind of stuff is on Brian's computer search engine. On second thought, I don't want to know. It would probably be really, really creepy. Anyway, the bird story featured a lovely shot of a car covered with bird droppings and several clips from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". That movie was produced by Universal, so this story is a great way to drum up some free publicity for a Universal movie and sell some DVDs. By the way, Brian showed three previews for this story, including one that was accompanied by the Beatles' "Blackbird". Brian often makes a point of playing popular music on Nightly News because it boosts the ratings and keeps viewers tuning in. Of course, Blackbirds are members of the thrush family while it was actually Starlings that invaded the Kentucky town. Somehow I don't think Brian really cares.
Sat. Jan. 21--At the beginning of his report about the Romney campaign, correspondent Peter Alexander said "good morning" to Lester Holt. At 6:35 PM. And he never even bothered to correct himself. I think Alexander should switch to a lower dose of medication.
***Brian Williams made a rare appearance on a Saturday edition of Nightly News. Was it because of a breaking news story? Was it because he had a special scoop? Was it because he wanted to help out the depleted Nightly News staff? Of course not. He appeared on the broadcast (from Orlando) for one selfish reason--to promote Monday's Republican debate in Tampa, which he would be moderating as part of Rock Center. Rock Center's ratings have been anemic so far, rarely drawing more than four million viewers. Last November, Hollywoodreporter.com even featured an article titled, "NBC's 'Rock Center' Ratings on Par With Canceled 'Playboy Club'." (An excerpt: "More jarring are comparisons to the former time slot occupant, which was ejected from the lineup on Oct. 3. In the 18-49 demo, Episode 2 of 'Rock Center' was down 23 percent from 'The Playboy Club’s' 1.3 rating [Sept. 26].") So folding Monday's debate into Rock Center is just a desperate attempt by Brian to boost his prime time show's sad ratings. It should be obvious to anyone watching that the only thing that could get Brian to give up part of his Saturday is the opportunity to promote one of his TV shows. Naturally, Brian's segment ended with a full-screen promo for Monday's Rock Center debate, accompanied by Brian's desperate plea for people to tune in. By the way, Nightly News devoted the entire first segment of Saturday's broadcast--12 full minutes--to the Republican candidates. Was this because the producers believed the candidates were a really important story? Don't be silly. The candidates were given that much air time solely as a way to promote Monday's NBC debate. As always, Nightly News allocates coverage based not on the news value of a story, but based on how much a story can help promote the network's other shows.
***Lester then spent a total of four minutes on two separate stories about the "Winter Blast hitting millions of Americans from Seattle all the way to Boston." He also told us that "much of the country is now covered in ice and snow." Really? In January? Who ever would have guessed? And the obligatory Weather Channel map showed these snow totals across the Northeast: Cleveland--2.1 inches, Binghamton--2.7 inches, Philadelphia--2.3 inches, New York--4.3 inches and Pittsburgh--4 inches. Two to four inches of snow? In the Northeast? Not exactly remarkable. But weather reporting is easy and cheap--just set up a camera and film the correspondent standing in snow--so Nightly News devotes a big chunk of its time to weather-related non-stories like this. And let's not forget that NBC Universal paid $3.5 billion for the Weather Channel, so they make damn sure to use it. Every single night.
Sun. Jan. 22--The lead story was about Gabby Giffords' decision to step down from Congress. Obviously, the NBC News research department has informed Brian and his producers that stories about Giffords deliver high ratings, so they put her on the broadcast as often as possible. This story included several quotes from Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner that were shown on-screen and enclosed in quotation marks (this will matter in a few moments).
***As part of Nightly News's rabid promotion for that night's debate, Chuck Todd did a 1:45 "debate preview". That's really just a weaselly code phrase for "debate promotion". I've never seen anyone at Nightly News do a "debate preview" for a debate that was airing on another network.
***We then saw nearly four minutes' worth of stories about Joe Paterno's death. One of those stories featured some quotes by Paterno that were shown on-screen but were not enclosed in quotation marks. So Nancy Pelosi's and John Boehner's earlier statements were given quotation marks, but Joe Paterno's statements were not. I guess the Nightly News producers were too busy promoting that night's debate to bother with anything as trivial as quotation marks.
***NBC News-shill Robert Bazell did a 2:10 story about the "hidden dangers" of osteoporosis. What hidden dangers? The story didn't mention anything of the sort. Get regular checkups and bone density tests when ordered by a doctor. That's the entire gist of this story. "Hidden dangers" is just an alarmist phrase the producers throw in to spice up a bland story and make it seem more urgent. So although there are no hidden dangers, there were some hidden promotions. Bazell's story included a gratuitous shot of a GE Lunar Prodigy Scanner. GE is a minority owner (and former majority owner) of NBC, so Bazell likes to include their equipment in his stories as often as possible. And at one point during the story, Bazell said, "But if the test finds thinning bones...many experts say the woman needs treatment with medication and frequent follow-up scans to reduce the risk of fractures...." As he said this, we were shown a close-up shot of bottles of Actonel, Fosamax and Boniva (bone-strengthening medications). Boniva was once a major Nightly News advertiser and I'm betting that all three medications are heavy advertisers on some (or all) of the 20 or so Comcast/NBC Universal networks. These drugs are manufactured by pharmaceutical heavyweights Warner Chilcott (Actonel), Merck (Fosamax) and GlaxoSmithKline (Boniva), and Bazell is always more than happy to use his reports to promote drugs made by regular NBC Universal advertisers. In fact, promoting NBC's pharmaceutical sponsors seems to be Bazell's main job at NBC News. There was really no point to this story other than to promote these drugs. Great job, Robert.
***CNBC's Brian Shactman presented a report (called "Package Wars") about the intense competition between UPS and FedEx. Great, but how on earth does this qualify as news? It doesn't. It was really just a 2:25 promo for a one-hour special (titled "Inside The Package Wars") that would be appearing the following night on CNBC. Wait a second--Shactman's CNBC special airs at 9:00 PM Monday--the exact same time as the Rock Center debate! OMG--what should I watch? I'll have to consult my Magic 8 Ball. By the way, "Package Wars" sounds like a title Brian Williams came up with. Whenever he appears with Letterman, Leno or Fallon, he inevitably brings the conversation back around to male genitalia. On David Letterman's 1/3/11 show, Brian felt compelled to tell us that his recent trip to California had included a pat-down by an airport security official who went "right after Dave and the twins." Then he twice used the word "shmegegge" as a euphemism for his genitals. And on Jimmy Fallon's 2/5/10 show, Brian described the luge bodysuit as "the most package-enhancing outfit...." Package wars, indeed. And I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict that Shactman's CNBC special is extremely flattering to both UPS and FedEx, since both are major NBC sponsors.
***The night's final story was "an incredible story" (according to Lester) about a nurse who donated a kidney to one of her patients. That's a really nice thing to do. But it isn't news. So why was it given two minutes on Nightly News? Because these types of sappy, emotional human interest stories test extremely well with focus groups and get very high ratings with viewers. And high ratings are without a doubt the most important thing to Brian and his producers. Maybe they should have called this story "Kidney Wars".
Mon. Jan. 23--Brian and his producers continued their full-court press to promote that night's Rock Center debate by devoting the broadcast's first eight-and-a-half minutes to the Republican candidates. This included another "debate preview" with Chuck Todd and David Gregory (see previous day's notes for a definition of "debate preview"). At one point, Andrea Mitchell reported on Newt Gingrich's super PAC, American Solutions. She told us that the super PAC's were not allowed to be used for self-promotion. That's pretty ironic considering that her report was actually part of Nightly News's self-promotion for that night's debate.
***After exhaustively promoting that night's debate, Brian handed the show over to Savannah Guthrie in New York so he could take time to prepare for his rigorous questioning of the candidates. Then we were treated to another Gabby Giffords story because...well, you know.
***Guthrie took 30 seconds to tell us that men may have a higher tolerance for pain than women but then suggested that men may actually be lying about their pain tolerance. Oh, okay. Thanks for that.
***Guthrie then spent 30 seconds on the first of many "Super Bowl previews" that we will see on Nightly News in the next two weeks. As is the case with the "debate previews", "Super Bowl previews" are just promotions for the game, which will be shown (of course) on NBC. Funny thing--I don't recall Nightly News doing any Super Bowl previews when the game was on CBS or Fox. Wonder why. This was followed by 38 seconds of the President doing his best Al Green impression at the Apollo Theater. Now we can get it as a ringtone! Awesome!
***The broadcast ended with a 1:50 story about a Texas family that was rescued from the water by good samaritans after their plane crashed off the coast of Honduras. The story featured a clip from "Today", which is the only reason I can come up with to explain why the Nightly News producers would devote nearly two minutes to this non-story.
***Meanwhile, also on Monday, the European Union imposed harsh economic sanctions on Iran (including a ban on oil purchases) because of their concerns about Iran's nuclear program. Four Kenyan politicians (including two presidential candidates) were ordered to stand trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague for crimes against humanity stemming from their involvement in violence that took place after the 2007 elections. And over the weekend in Nigeria, the radical Islamist sect Boko Haram was responsible for ethnic violence that resulted in the deaths of at least 184 people. But Nightly News did not report any of these stories because Brian and his producers don't care about what's going on in the rest of the world, especially in Africa. Brian desperately wants his viewers to believe that Nightly News reports the news in a color-blind manner, but his continued insistence on ignoring Africa paints a very different picture.
Tues. Jan. 24--Despite important news stories taking place around the world, Nightly News's lead story is about Mitt Romney's tax returns. Wow, it's tough being part of the 1%--and no one knows that better than Brian Williams. I wonder--when are we going to see Brian's tax returns? This story featured a clip from MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports", but the on-screen credit line did not enclose the show's title in quotes.
***The next story was a 2:40 recap of the previous night's debate which--surprise--took place on NBC. On Jan. 7, the candidates debated on ABC, but no one at Nightly News ever mentioned that debate even once. Meanwhile, Nightly News spent the equivalent time of an entire broadcast promoting and recapping the NBC debate. Without a doubt, Nightly News is the most shamelessly self-promoting news broadcast on the air. And like a petulant child, they refuse to even acknowledge events that take place on other networks. By the way, this story featured a clip of Newt Gingrich from "Fox & Friends" and the Nightly News producers used quotes around the show's title in the on-screen credit line. So "Andrea Mitchell Reports" doesn't get quotes, but "Fox & Friends" does. Go figure.
***Next, Chuck Todd, Kelly O'Donnell and David Gregory spent four minutes previewing the President's State of the Union address. It goes without saying that they were promoting NBC's broadcast of the speech. At one point during his story, Chuck Todd misquoted an excerpt from the speech the President would deliver later that night. Todd used the phrase "...skills for the American workers..." but the on-screen transcript read "...skills for American workers...." Apparently, Todd felt that he could improve upon the President's speech by adding a word to it. Maybe he should become the President's speechwriter.
***Brian then spent a minute-and-a-half raving about the Northern Lights. "If you live in the Northern U.S. or Canada, you're in for what could be a heck of a light show tonight...." Thanks for the heads-up, dude.
***This next story was quite a treat. Brian spent 2:15 personally narrating a report about some John F. Kennedy tapes that were just released. Brian fancies himself a historian, just like Newt Gingrich fancies himself a historian. I guess there must be something about people with huge egos that makes them think of themselves as historians. Unfortunately, historian Brian allowed his producers to misquote Pres. Kennedy. During a clip in which Kennedy was talking about the advantages of filming the 1964 Democratic Convention in color, he said, "Probably a million people watching it in color and it would have an effect...be quite an effect on the convention." But the accompanying on-screen transcription omitted the word "people". So for the second time in the same broadcast, someone from Nightly News has misquoted a president. Chuck Todd added a word and Brian's producers removed a word. Everyone at Nightly News must be so proud of their attention to detail.
***The final story was a 2:20 "news report" about the Oscar nominations. The story featured two full minutes of movie clips from "The Artist", "Hugo", "The Descendants", "Moneyball", "The Iron Lady", "Bridesmaids" and "The Help". (Clips from "The Artist" alone totaled 51 seconds.) Naturally, George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Meryl Streep were given plenty of air time because they're audience favorites, as well as Brian's favorites. This wasn't a news story, it was a pander-fest. It's like watching movie previews in a theater. Brian knows that his viewers like entertainment stories much more than news stories, so he's always eager to oblige with garbage like this. Nightly News airs these movie-clip-compilation stories often--this is the fourth such story they have done in just the past two months. On Nov. 25, it was a story about holiday movies for kids. On Dec. 18, it was a story about nostalgia in movies. And on Jan. 1, it was a story about how 2011 was a bad year at the box office. (Those are only the multiple-clip stories--I didn't include all the stories that feature just one or two movie clips since those would have taken too long to list). This is also the fourth Nightly News story in five weeks to include clips from "The Artist". Clearly, that is Brian's favorite movie of the season. Last year, Brian's favorite movie was "The King's Speech", as evidenced by the four times it appeared in Nightly News stories. While it's certainly the goal of Brian and his producers to boost their show's ratings by showing the viewers mindless entertainment, it is also their goal to appease the film studios by promoting their films. The film industry is a major advertiser on NBC Universal networks, and this is Brian's way of thanking them for all the advertising dollars they have spent with NBC over the years. But of course there could be another, more sinister motive here. What if NBC's advertising department is actually selling space in Nightly News stories to the film studios? Did the Weinstein Company pay for those four stories Nightly News did on "The Artist" or the three stories they did on "The Iron Lady"? Of course, we'll never know for sure. But you can probably guess what I think.
Wed. Jan. 25--Wow! Another Gabby Giffords story! The third one in four days. That makes nearly eight minutes worth of Giffords stories that we've seen this week. It would be an understatement to say that Brian is exploiting Giffords and milking her for all she's worth because her stories bring him good ratings. By the way, this was a rare triple flag story. Anyone who watches Nightly News knows that they show more U.S. flags than any other network news broadcast--including anything on the Fox News Channel. Animated flags are constantly waving behind Brian or Lester--often for the entire first half of the broadcast. Animated flags are also used as the background for political stories, military stories and any other stories in which the producers can get away with it. Nightly News correspondents always make a point of standing near a flag when reporting so that the flag is in the shot. Politicians are always filmed from the angle that shows off the most flags. And any time Nightly News covers a disaster--flood, hurricane, earthquake--the producers send the camera operators off to get as many gratuitous flag shots as possible. The crown jewel, of course, is a shot of a tattered American flag on top of a pile of rubble. That's the money shot. That's gold for the Nightly News producers. (Never mind that the flags are often planted there by those same producers.) Brian and his producers love flags because it's a way for them to disingenuously appeal to the viewers' sense of rah-rah gung-ho eagle-soaring God-Bless-America faux patriotism. Flags are merely part of Brian's calculated scheme to pander to the NASCAR demographic. Using flags as a ratings-generating prop is, of course, shameless, but since when does Brian ever care about shame? He only cares about his Nielsen numbers. Often, the producers show two flags on screen at the same time. Because apparently they love America twice as much as any of the other networks. But Wednesday's Gabby Giffords story contained a rare triple flag shot. As Brian introduced the story, there was, of course, the obligatory animated flag waving behind him. There was also a clip over his left shoulder of Giffords being greeted by John Boehner at the House Speaker's podium, with a huge flag as the background. And below the clip, there was a flag in the shape of Arizona. I guess that was in case anyone forgot what country Arizona was in. Triple flag! Awesome! Suck on that Scott Pelley and Diane Sawyer!
***In the Giffords story, we were shown clips of speeches made by the various congressional leaders. Eric Cantor was identified as the House Majority Leader. Nancy Pelosi was identified as the House Minority Leader. And Steny Hoyer--well, he was identified only as a Representative from Maryland. But Hoyer is the House Minority Whip--the second most powerful post in the minority party. So if the Nightly News producers identified Cantor and Pelosi by their leadership positions, why didn't they also identify Hoyer by his leadership position? The answer is because no one at Nightly News cares about consistency.
***Brian ended the Giffords story this way: "An incredible scene there today Kelly O'Donnell on the Hill lucky to witness it all...." Incredible? Really? Isn't that a little overblown? And why is Kelly O'Donnell lucky to have witnessed it? She has a press pass. She's NBC's congressional correspondent. It's her job to report stories like this. Luck has nothing to do with it, you idiot.
***Brian began the next story by saying, "And we must now report on politics once again...." Must? Why must he? Who's ordering him to? What a ridiculous thing to say.
***Next, Brian reported on the extreme weather. Again. Here's what he said to The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore: "Jim, when you and I meet up after a bad weather event it's the spring, it's the summer or fall, but it is rarely winter." As always, Brian used a personal pronoun to turn a news story into a story about himself. Because the news is always about Brian.
***The next story was a 2:15 waste of time about whether grief should be classified as a mental disorder and the possibility of a "grief pill" to relieve the symptoms. Really. This was a news story on a network news broadcast. I can't believe it either. Another idiotic story from the idiotic Anne Thompson. Has she ever reported a story that actually mattered? This "news report" was padded with ridiculous stock videos and photos of grieving, crying people. The final shot was a black and white photo of a sad elderly woman with her head in her hands. She must have been watching Nightly News.
***We were treated to a atory about school lunches becoming healthier. The story began, of course, with Michelle Obama. The Nightly News producers insert Mrs. Obama into as many stories as possible because she's very popular and stories featuring her get high ratings.
***Brian then read an obituary for actor James Farentino. Seriously? James Farentino? No disrespect, but his death is not exactly network news material. But it gave Brian an opportunity to show some of his old TV clips and that's what really matters. Entertainment is always more important than news on Nightly News.
***After that, Brian reported the breaking news story of the Australian Transport Minister who gave a speech that he had plagiarized from the movie "The American President". I think you know what came next. That's right--a clip of Michael Douglas reciting the speech in the movie. Brian has a huge man-crush on Douglas and he makes a point of including Douglas's movie and TV clips on Nightly News as often as possible. It had already been two long weeks since Brian had last showed a Michael Douglas clip (Jan. 11--"Wall Street") so obviously it was time for another one. There is no doubt that the only reason Brian chose to report this story was because it allowed him to show the Douglas clip.
***Brian the treated us to some photos of the Northern Lights. Thanks.
***The final story was a testimonial to correspondent George Lewis, who had just retired. Here's how Brian began the story: "Finally here tonight, as you know, we like to run a family operation around here and tonight we have news about a member of our family--long time NBC News correspondent George Lewis is retiring today after 42 years with NBC News." A family operation? What a load of crap. NBC News is a conglomerate within a conglomerate within a conglomerate. They hire and fire people based on business decisions, nothing else. Except for Brian, of course. He gets to hire incompetent people like Luke Russert because of who his dad was. I guess that's what Brian meant by "a family operation". And of course, NBC News will hire any child of a former president as long as they can read and write.
***This night, Nightly News did not even mention the tumultuous events going on in Syria or Nigeria. But we learned all about extreme weather, grief as a mental disorder and Michael Douglas's "American President" speech. Thanks, Brian.
Thurs. Jan. 26--This is how Brian introduced a story about new rules governing airfares: "New rules for airlines to take effect today and what's in it for all those of US who fly." Those of us who fly. Once again, Brian has changed a news story into a story about him.
***A story about the Republican presidential candidates featured a clip of Newt Gingrich on "The Today Show". Because, as always, promoting "Today" is one of Brian's most important jobs.
***During a story on the Costa Concordia, Brian said, "They may never find the 19 souls still missing...." Souls? What is wrong with him? Why doesn't he just say "bodies"?
***Brian then spent nearly a minute reporting the important story that Vanna White and Pat Sajak used to appear on "Wheel of Fortune" while drunk. Because Brian is a professional journalist. He began the story this way: "Game show fans are reacting in mock-horror after WE all learned this week the dirty little secret behind the 'Wheel of Fortune' in the early days...." We. Again, it's about Brian. Always.
***This next story is difficult for me to write about. Brian took a minute to tell us about two brothers-in-law whose boat sank off the coast of Nantucket three years ago and eventually drifted all the way to Spain. Here's how Brian ended the story: "There once was a boat from Nantucket/That bobbed across the sea like a bucket/Hit by winds and heavy rain/It drifted clear to Spain/Now they must decide whether to chuck it." Sorry, but there's no other way to say this: Brian Williams is a fucking moron. Obviously, Brian chose to report this story for only one reason--because it gave him an opportunity to show off what he sadly believes passes for a sense of humor. Now, even if Brian actually was funny, that still wouldn't be an excuse to ignore real news in order to report these types of idiotic garbage stories. His pathetic attempts at humor are just painful to watch. It is truly shameful that a network anchor would stoop this low just to satisfy his desperate need to be liked.
***Brian took thirty seconds to show us some new high definition photos from space. He referred to Earth as "our big blue marble". He told us that, "There are no blue or red states visible from space." Gosh, he's a deep thinker.
***The broadcast ended with a story about Samantha Garvey. I mean another story about Samantha Garvey. She's the homeless high school student who was a semi-finalist for the Intel Science prize. This is the third Samantha Garvey story that Nightly News has reported in two weeks. She's the new Mary Thornberry. Garvey seems like a nice kid, but there is absolutely nothing about her that qualifies as news. It's just another in an endless line of sappy, feel-good stories that Nightly News reports over and over and over again. These stories test well in focus groups and get high ratings, so the producers pack the broadcast with them. And then they do follow-ups and more follow-ups and follow-ups to the follow-ups. Last February, Nightly News did seven stories (totaling 14 minutes) on Mary Thornberry--the American woman who was trapped in her Cairo apartment during the Tahrir Square uprising. So Cairo was erupting in violence and Nightly News was reporting on Mary Thornberry. Unbelievable. I'm guessing that Samantha Garvey will get at least as many stories as Mary Thornberry. Maybe more. By the way, the story featured a clip of Garvey on "The Today Show"--the second time on the broadcast that a "Today" clip was used.
Fri. Jan. 27--In a story about hard times in Pontiac, Michigan, one of the residents interviewed was identified in a graphic as "Charles Mason Ritired Auto Worker". What exactly was he "ritired" from?
***Brian showed us some nifty time-lapse video of construction at a London Olympics site and informed us that the Olympics begin in six months. Let the Games begin! Not the Olympic Games--I mean the promotional games. Nightly News will be bombarding us with Olympics-related promotions over the next six months. During the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Nightly News aired an incredible 160 minutes of Olympics-related stories whose only purpose was to coerce us to watch the Games on the various NBC networks.
***Brian then narrated a 20 second obituary for Robert Hegyes, who played Juan Epstein on "Welcome Back, Kotter". Again, no offense intended, but if James Farentino doesn't deserve an obituary on Nightly News, then Robert Hegyes certainly doesn't deserve one, either. But what really matters is that Brian got to show some "Kotter" clips. More entertainment + less news = better ratings.
***Brian spent another 20 seconds showing us a photo of an infant sleeping on his father's military uniform--taken a month after the father had died. So? Are we supposed to cry? Brian should be fined by the FCC for wasting our time with this garbage.
***Then Brian told us about the first all-female crew to fly a Navy combat mission. I really wish he would keep his sexual fantasies to himself. Brian will report any story about the U.S. Military because he is the propaganda minister for the U.S. Armed Forces.
***After that, Brian treated us to yet another story about the Northern Lights. This is the third story this week about the Northern Lights. He called them "The Greatest Show on Earth". I'm pretty certain that no one would ever use that phrase to describe Nightly News.
***The final story of the night was about bird shit. I'm not kidding. Here's how Brian introduced the story: "Finally tonight we're gonna take you to a town with a big problem. It's in northern Kentucky where good people live and these days they live with a lot of birds. They weren't looking for birds--they like birds enough--but there's birds and there's the birds that have moved into this town along with everything birds bring with them--the stuff that comes out the back and the noise that comes out the front." Really? The stuff that comes out the back? Brian is clearly obsessed with animal shit. On Dec. 8, he reported a "news story" about a squirrel that had set off a fire alarm in a Florida elementary school. He ended the story by saying, "The good news--pest control has been notified. The bad news--those weren't raisins on the rice pudding." With all his talk about male genitalia and animal shit, I can only imagine what kind of stuff is on Brian's computer search engine. On second thought, I don't want to know. It would probably be really, really creepy. Anyway, the bird story featured a lovely shot of a car covered with bird droppings and several clips from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". That movie was produced by Universal, so this story is a great way to drum up some free publicity for a Universal movie and sell some DVDs. By the way, Brian showed three previews for this story, including one that was accompanied by the Beatles' "Blackbird". Brian often makes a point of playing popular music on Nightly News because it boosts the ratings and keeps viewers tuning in. Of course, Blackbirds are members of the thrush family while it was actually Starlings that invaded the Kentucky town. Somehow I don't think Brian really cares.
Friday, January 20, 2012
NBC Nightly News Show Notes 1/14 Through 1/20 (Revised)
The big story on Nightly News this week was cold weather and snow. In January. Here's what happened on Nightly News this week:
Sat. Jan. 14--Obviously at no loss for worn-out cliches, Lester Holt told us about the "Deep Freeze" and the "Arctic Blast" taking place in much of the Northeast. Then The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel gave us the details: 32 degrees in New York; 33 in St. Louis; 32 in Lexington, KY; 35 in Washington, D.C. and 50 in Atlanta. These temperatures are all within the normal range for these cities in January, so why is this news? Seidel then told us that Sunday's temperature in New York would be a "numbing 27 degrees". Numbing? Five degrees below freezing? This is absolutely absurd. Normal weather is not news. When is Nightly News going to stop wasting our time with weather garbage and cover real news?
***A story about Joe Paterno's first major interview since he got fired featured audio clips from the interview, along with on-screen transcripts of his statements. Some of his printed statements were enclosed in quotes, some were not. Quotes, no quotes--whatever.
***Later, Lester spent 25 seconds telling us that in 2010 the TSA collected more than $409,000 in loose change left behind by passengers at security checkpoints. The first thing I thought was: Wow, that's two weeks' salary for Brian Williams. During this story, we were shown an animated flight board (created by the Nightly News graphics department) with imaginary departures listed for various cities. The city at the top of the board was "Ankorage". The correct spelling is Anchorage. The producers really should know this. After all, the first six letters are A-N-C-H-O-R. You know, like Brian Williams. And what do the Nightly News producers have against Alaska? On Dec. 25, 2010, the producers spelled Juneau as "Juno". Like the Ellen Page movie title. And twice in the past two years (4/26/11 and 4/23/10) the producers abbreviated Arkansas as "AK" instead of "AR". AK is actually the abbreviation for Alaska. Obviously, no one at Nightly News cares the slightest bit about accuracy. Is it too harsh to say the Nightly News producers are morons?
***The final story of the night was a 2:10 piece about injured and orphaned seals that are cared for and rehabbed in an Amsterdam marine life facility. Well, I guess this story was long overdue--it had been a whole month since Nightly News last did a story on seals (12/14/11). That's what I love about the Nightly News producers--they're all about the hard news. Always.
Sun. Jan. 15--Lester read this news flash: "Tonight millions of Americans are dealing with a deep freeze--a blast of Arctic air stretching from Boston to Chicago...." Cold weather in New England! In winter! 31 in Chicago! 26 in Detroit! Below freezing in Canada! OMG! I've never heard of such low temperatures in January! Thanks, Lester!
***A story about Pres. Obama's re-election campaign identified David Axelrod as an "Obama Campaign Strategist". After years of arbitrarily alternating between calling Axelrod an "adviser" and an "advisor", the Nightly News producers finally settled on "strategist" to avoid looking stupid as a result of their constantly changing spellings. And it took them five years to figure this out?
***In that same story, the producers showed October, November and December calendar pages on-screen to illustrate that the President raised $68 million in the last quarter of 2011. On each of these calendars, the week began with Monday and ended with Sunday. Funny thing--every calendar I've ever seen begins the week with Sunday and ends with Saturday. Why are the Nightly News producers using factory-second calendars? Or maybe they're using Mayan or lunar calendars.
***Correspondent Craig Melvin then spent 2:15 on a story about people who share, swap or trade instead of buying and selling. Fascinating--not. This story had a familiar feel to it. I wonder why. Oh yeah--just a few weeks ago (12/27/11) Nightly News did a 2:20 story about how the people of Portland, Maine barter services in lieu of buying and selling. Another rerun on Nightly News.
***The final story was Duncan Golestani's 2:15 piece about Margaret Thatcher. Or more specifically, about Meryl Streep's portrayal of Thatcher in "The Iron Lady". Not surprisingly, as the last story of the night, this story led right into the Red Carpet special that preceded the Golden Globe Awards. So the Streep/Thatcher story was, of course, just a promo for the Golden Globes. The story contained clips from the movie and interviews with Streep. And it also contained 30 seconds of gratuitous Golden Globe clips--mostly featuring George Clooney. Because viewers like to see him and it boosts the ratings.
Mon. Jan. 16--Nightly News devoted the first nine minutes of the broadcast to three reports about the capsized cruise ship off the coast of Italy. First of all, the story could have been fully reported in three minutes. Six people dead, 29 people missing (at that time). There really wasn't much more to say. The other six minutes was just the Nightly News producers milking the story for ratings. In general, the way in which Brian Williams and the Nightly News correspondents covered the story was really very sloppy.
***In his intro to the lead story, Brian referred to the ship as the "Casa" Concordia, rather than the Costa Concordia.
***Also in his intro, Brian said that, "Of the 4200 souls on board, six are dead, 29 still missing...." Souls? Why does Brian always insist on speaking as if he was narrating a trailer for a really bad horror film? Why can't he just say "people"?
***In the second segment about the Costa Concordia, Harry Smith rode out to Giglio Island in a chartered boat to get a closer look at the submerged liner. Here's his bizarre description of the trip: "We went out there with an American boat captain--a yacht captain--who has plied these waters around here and around the world for more than 30 years and what he has to say about the captain and the captain's actions in regard to sailing so close to this tiny island in waters that have been charted for hundreds of years, all the way back to beyond the birth of Christ is something you're gonna want to hear and we'll have that on a report tonight on Rock Center." Wow. That's a long way to go just to promote Rock Center. But Smith should read up on his religious history. If the waters have been charted for "hundreds of years", that wouldn't come close to going back to "beyond the birth of Christ", since Christ was (as legend has it) born more than 2,000 years ago. Smith was off by about 1,500 years. And why is he even mentioning Christ in the first place? It's such an out-of-left-field reference it just leaves us scratching our heads.
***During Tom Costello's segment about rules and regulations of cruise ship evacuations, we were shown a clip of an interview with a Coast Guard officer who is a liaison to the cruise ship industry and who was identified in a Nightly News graphic as "Lt. Commander Dan Brehm US Coast Guard". But in a clip of Brehm that was used on Sunday's Nightly News, he was identified as "Lieutenant Commander Dan Brehm U.S. Coast Guard". Why was he called a "Lieutenant Commander" on Sunday and a "Lt. Commander" on Monday? Why was it "U.S. Coast Guard" on Sunday, but "US Coast Guard" on Monday? Where were the periods? At Nightly News, no one cares about consistency. In fact, no one seems to care the slightest bit about spelling, grammar or syntax. Nightly News is certainly not a professional news organization.
***A story about a change in the inscription on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was identical to a story that had been reported on Saturday. If Lester Holt already told us about it, why did Brian need to tell us about it again? Did this really need to be reported twice? Apparently, a story isn't news unless Brian himself reports it.
***Mike Taibbi spent more than two minutes telling us about a woman and her two kids that were rescued (by Navy Seabees with a heavy-duty forklift) from their car as it teetered precipitously above an overpass after being rear-ended by a truck. We're all glad that they're safe. But two minutes? Come on, now.
***Brian spent 30 seconds on a story that he began with, "There's interesting new research out tonight about how infants learn to talk." The entire video portion of the story consisted of a YouTube clip of two infant twins seemingly having an animated baby-talk conversation with each other. Obviously, the story was concocted solely as an excuse to show the video (this is at least the third time Nightly News has shown this video). If there was any doubt about that, during the story Brian said, "This is just one of our favorite videos." Well, Brian gets to do whatever he wants, so if he wants to show the video, the producers show the video.
***On the previous Thursday (1/12), Brian spent nearly a minute irresponsibly and alarmistly scaring us into thinking that a falling Russian space probe was going to crash into Madagascar and annihilate that island in a fiery explosion. Brian must have been bitterly disappointed on Monday when he had to meekly report that the probe fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean. Yet another example of Brian massively hyping a non-story for maximum shock value for the sole purpose of generating sensationalist ratings. (See also the eight ridiculous stories on the Carmageddon non-event that Nightly News reported in July.)
***This is one of those stories that makes me wonder why the FCC hasn't shut down Nightly News for good. It's also one of those stories that makes me want to vomit. It was an idiotic, pandering 90-second recap of the previous night's Golden Globe Awards, which (of course) had been shown on NBC. The story was formatted like a silent movie (like "The Artist") with no audio dialogue. Instead, the words were written on cards, also like in a silent movie, and the color footage was changed to black and white. Along with footage of George Clooney (naturally) and Meryl Streep, the cards contained inane descriptions like, "It was also a big night for Best Actor George Clooney!" "His movie 'The Descendants' won Best Drama!" "Clooney plays a guy whose wife was cheating on him!" "Meryl Streep won Best Actress for 'The Iron Lady'!" "It was her fifth Best Actress award, but she forgot her glasses!" "But the real star of the night was the dog from 'The Artist'!" "He did tricks on stage!" "Who's a good dog?" Honestly. I mean it. This was an actual story on a network evening newscast. I'm not kidding. And Brian began the story by bragging that, "About 17 million of you watched the Golden Globes last night...." Yes, it's very dignified and professional for a news anchor to brag about his network's ratings. Funny thing--I never hear Brian bragging about the appallingly low ratings for most of the rest of NBC's prime time schedule (including his own Rock Center, which draws an anemic 4 million people each week on average). By the way, other sources (including The New York Times) reported that the show was actually watched by 16.8 million people. Brian certainly knew that when he made his claim of 17 million viewers, but clearly he thought that 17 million sounded much more impressive than 16.8 million. And here's something Brian "neglected" to mention: The Golden Globes' viewership was down from 2011, including a slip of 4% in the important 18-49 demographic. Of course, Brian never reports bad news about NBC so he didn't mention this. (I'm still waiting for Brian to report that NBC lost $225 million on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. I won't hold my breath.)
***The final story of the night was about a six-year-old boy with Down Syndrome who is also a model and actor in commercials. Apparently, the whole point of the story was that children with Down Syndrome are not as different as some might think. That's nice, but why is this news? Meanwhile, the idiotic Anne Thompson talked to this little boy like she was talking to a goldfish. If you're going to do a story meant to show that Down Syndrome children are not so different, don't use a correspondent who's going to talk to the story's subject in such a condescending manner.
***Meanwhile, here are a few of the stories Brian and his producers chose NOT to report on Monday: 1) A building collapsed in Beirut killing at least 26 people. Brian didn't care about this story because most of the people killed were poor or immigrants. And also because they didn't die in a luxury ocean liner. 2) The Pakistani Supreme Court initiated "contempt-of-court proceedings against Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani for failing to pursue corruption charges against his boss, President Asif Ali Zardari." (According to Tuesday's New York Times.) 3) Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan finally backed down from his decision to cut fuel subsidies for the Nigerian people. Riots and strikes over the fuel subsidy cuts had been raging for weeks. 4) Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit rating of the Eurozone bailout fund (the European Financial Stability Facility) from AAA to AA+, potentially making it more difficult for the fund's managers to borrow money. Last week, S & P similarly downgraded the credit rating of France and eight other Eurozone countries--Nightly News still has not reported this. But at least we know all about the Russian space probe, the twin infants who talk to each other and George Clooney and Meryl Streep's great night at the Golden Globe Awards. Great job, Brian. You should be so proud of what you're doing at Nightly News.
Tues. Jan. 17--Brian again told us about the "Winter Blast" in the Pacific Northwest. I wish I had a dollar for every time Brian or Lester said "Winter Blast".
***Mike Taibbi did a 2:10 follow-up story to Monday's report about the woman and her two kids that were rescued from their car as it dangled above a highway overpass. A brief definition: At Nightly News, a "follow-up story" is a way to waste time by showing existing footage (either used or unused) of a story in order to create a second story that is virtually identical to the original story. Follow-up stories are very inexpensive to produce because most or all of the footage has already been filmed. The producers just need to do some editing and record a voice-over and ta-da...instant story. In this case, Taibbi and his producers basically repeated the original story with some added footage of the Seabees who rescued the car's passengers. So over two days, Nightly News spent 4:15 on this one story, rather than reporting on important news going on around the world. Thanks, Nightly News.
***Brian spent a minute telling us about Paula Deen's diabetes. This story had been circulating for days, but Brian reported it on Tuesday because Deen had appeared on that morning's Today Show. Remember, it isn't news unless it happens on NBC. The video that accompanied the segment consisted of Deen talking to Al Roker and doing a cooking demonstration on The Today Show set. As usual, Brian's number one job is to promote other NBC shows. But promoting The Today Show takes on a greater urgency now because the revamping of CBS This Morning makes it a potential threat to The Today Show's ratings. We all recall that in the months before and after Conan O'Brien replaced Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, Brian made it his personal mission to use his broadcast to rabidly promote Leno, Conan and The Tonight Show (as well as Leno's prime-time show). Perhaps the most shameless manifestation of Brian's fawning promotional efforts was on the 4/8/09 Nightly News, when he did a ridiculously gratuitous "Making A Difference" segment on Leno--less than two months before Leno ceded The Tonight Show to Conan! Is it ethical for a news anchor to use his broadcast to promote his network's other shows? I'll leave it to you to decide.
***Because sports and entertainment are a huge part of Nightly News (meaning they boost the broadcast's ratings), Brian did a segment on the birthdays of Muhammad Ali and Betty White. Brian called White an "American icon". Not coincidentally, NBC had aired a birthday tribute to White the previous night. But White's birthday tribute was scheduled to be rebroadcast the following Saturday, so of course Brian's goal was to promote the second airing of the special and increase its ratings. Does anyone believe for a second that Brian would have mentioned White's birthday if her special was airing on another network?
***Brian then spent a combined 75 seconds to tell us about a mistaken water-landing announcement that was broadcast on a British Airways plane and that the average age of Americans' cars is 10.8 years. Fascinating.
***The final story was about the wacky curve ball questions being asked on today's college applications. Some colleges are asking applicants who their favorite superhero is or about their favorite ride in an amusement park. Honestly, it's not nearly as important to find out why colleges are asking silly questions of their applicants as it is to find out why Nightly News is wasting 2:20 telling us about it. Isn't there any real news to report?
Wed. Jan. 18--During a story about the Italian Cruise Ship disaster, a Nightly News graphic identified Adam Smallman as the "Lloyds Head of Content". Actually, it's "Lloyd's". But when have the Nightly News producers ever cared about an apostrophe?
***We were treated to yet another story about the snowstorm in Seattle. Isn't there a better way to allocate two minutes of important Nightly News air time?
***In a story about the world's best and worst airport terminals, Brian told us that, "LaGuardia terminal 5 is the seventh worst in the world...." But on-screen, the graphic read "LaGuardia Terminal C". Kennedy Airport has a terminal 5, LaGuardia doesn't. Brian was wrong, the graphic was right. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the producers used the same animated graphic representation of an airport departure flight board as they did on Saturday--and like Saturday, Anchorage was misspelled as "Ankorage". Making this mistake once was awful. But twice is inexcusable.
***Brian then spent 30 seconds telling us that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was named a Global Cultural Ambassador by the State Department. Thanks, Brian. Good to know.
Thurs. Jan. 19--In a story about the Costa Concordia, Brian said, "Divers are back at work searching that giant wreck...for the 21 souls who are still missing...." Again he said "souls". What the hell is wrong with him?
***In a story about the political revolt in Syria, Brian pronounced the city of Daraa as "Daria". You know, like the late 90's animated MTV series.
***In his story about South Carolina politics, Tom Brokaw told us that Jim DeMint is South Carolina's "most popular senator". Really, Tom? So he's the most popular out of the state's two senators? Wow, what an honor.
***Brian and his producers used the death of freestyle skier Sarah Burke as a shameless promotion for the Olympics. Both Brian and newsidiot Anne Thompson made sure to tell us that Burke was a gold medal hopeful for the 2014 Sochi Games. Real classy move, Brian. But it's certainly not surprising. Nightly News will report any story that's even tangentially related to the Olympics because they're desperate for any opportunity to promote NBC's Olympic coverage (just wait until this summer. Nightly News will become a promotional video for the London Games.). Brian also made a point of saying that Burke "was beautiful". How is that relevant? Does Nightly News cover women differently depending on how attractive they are? Clearly, the answer is "yes". This is typical of Nightly News. On the 2/7/10 broadcast (five days before the Vancouver Olympics began), NBC sports producer Alan Abrahamson said this of Lindsey Vonn: "She's blond, she's pretty...." Apparently, the way in which the Nightly News producers choose to cover women in the news really does depend on what they look like.
***The broadcast ended with a 2:15 story about David Rubenstein, a wealthy philanthropist who donated money to help restore the Washington Monument after it was damaged in last August's earthquake. Brian is clearly obsessed with the Washington Monument. This is the seventh story he has reported about the damage it incurred. And like the other six stories, this one began with a ridiculous animated flag waving behind Brian. Obviously, his goal is to boost his ratings by crassly appealing to his viewers' sense of rah-rah gung-ho God-Bless-America patriotism. But with out a doubt, my favorite part of this report was when the producers gratuitously inserted panda footage into the story as Tom Costello was telling us that Rubenstein had donated $4.5 million to the National Zoo. Boom--cue the pandas! Is there no level to which the Nightly News producers will not stoop in order to pander to the viewers? Why not graphically insert pandas into every news story? Look--there's a panda on the deck of the Costa Concordia! Look--there's Gabby Giffords holding a panda! Look--there's a panda on stage during the Republican debate! The Nightly News producers are absolutely shameless.
Fri. Jan. 20--Brian began the broadcast reporting from Orlando because it's never too early to begin promoting Monday's Republican debate on NBC. The lead story, ostensibly about the Republican candidates (but which was really just a promo for the debate) featured 15 seconds of Stephen Colbert video. Obviously, the producers realize that viewers are bored by politics but love entertainment news. After seven minutes of promoting Monday's debate, Brian told us we could see it "On your NBC station on the NBC television network". Um, Brian, the 1950's called--they want their promotional announcement back. At that point, Brian mercifully turned the remainder of the broadcast over to Lester Holt so he could go enjoy Disney World with his family. Excuse me--I mean Universal Studios. Brian ignores ABC when he reports the news, so he certainly would never patronize a theme park owned by ABC's parent company.
***Lester's first story was the "Winter Blast" which dumped 6-8 inches of snow in Chicago. Give me a break. In Chicago, that's a dusting. The accompanying Weather Channel map forecast one inch of snow in Syracuse, 2-4 inches in Detroit and 3-5 inches in New York, Pittsburgh and Boston. Wow. It's like a new ice age has hit the Northeast. This meager snowfall is a complete non-event, but the Nightly News producers nevertheless saw fit to waste 2:40 of valuable news time on it. Thanks.
***We were shown 35 seconds of video of the President singing an Al Green song. Maybe the producers should have attached a "Breaking News" banner to this story.
***We then saw a 1:35 obituary for Etta James. It felt like deja vu. I wonder why? Oh yeah--it's because Brian already read her obituary on Dec. 16--before she died! That's right--Brian has invented the pre-obituary. It's a way to report twice on the same person's death. Of course, that never seems to be a problem. Brian has also perfected the two-day obituary, in which he reports someone's death a second time on Monday after Lester has already reported it on Sunday. Recently, he has done this with Cardinal John Foley and Tony Blankley. But as we all know, a story isn't really news unless Brian himself reports it.
***The final story of the night was a 2:40 piece about the Tuskegee Airmen and the movie about them, "Red Tails". Why did I also get deja vu from this story. I guess it was because Nightly News already reported the exact same story last Oct. 5. The Tuskegee Airmen and the "Red Tails" movie. The Tuskegee Airmen were great heroes, but do we really need to see this story twice in less than four months? No we don't. But Nightly News is the unofficial propaganda arm of the U.S. Military, and their job is to promote the armed services with stories like this. Twice, if necessary. And let's not forget that this was also an entertainment story (it included 55 seconds of clips from "Red Tails") so that's like the daily double for the Nightly News producers. Make-believe patriotism and movie clips together in one story. Sounds like Nightly News heaven. Meanwhile, on Friday, France suspended training operations in Afghanistan after an Afghan soldier killed four French soldiers and wounded 16 in response to the video of U.S. Marines urinating on Afghan corpses. Nightly News didn't bother to report this story. But at least we know all about the Winter Blast and the President's Al Green moment. Great job, Nightly News producers.
Sat. Jan. 14--Obviously at no loss for worn-out cliches, Lester Holt told us about the "Deep Freeze" and the "Arctic Blast" taking place in much of the Northeast. Then The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel gave us the details: 32 degrees in New York; 33 in St. Louis; 32 in Lexington, KY; 35 in Washington, D.C. and 50 in Atlanta. These temperatures are all within the normal range for these cities in January, so why is this news? Seidel then told us that Sunday's temperature in New York would be a "numbing 27 degrees". Numbing? Five degrees below freezing? This is absolutely absurd. Normal weather is not news. When is Nightly News going to stop wasting our time with weather garbage and cover real news?
***A story about Joe Paterno's first major interview since he got fired featured audio clips from the interview, along with on-screen transcripts of his statements. Some of his printed statements were enclosed in quotes, some were not. Quotes, no quotes--whatever.
***Later, Lester spent 25 seconds telling us that in 2010 the TSA collected more than $409,000 in loose change left behind by passengers at security checkpoints. The first thing I thought was: Wow, that's two weeks' salary for Brian Williams. During this story, we were shown an animated flight board (created by the Nightly News graphics department) with imaginary departures listed for various cities. The city at the top of the board was "Ankorage". The correct spelling is Anchorage. The producers really should know this. After all, the first six letters are A-N-C-H-O-R. You know, like Brian Williams. And what do the Nightly News producers have against Alaska? On Dec. 25, 2010, the producers spelled Juneau as "Juno". Like the Ellen Page movie title. And twice in the past two years (4/26/11 and 4/23/10) the producers abbreviated Arkansas as "AK" instead of "AR". AK is actually the abbreviation for Alaska. Obviously, no one at Nightly News cares the slightest bit about accuracy. Is it too harsh to say the Nightly News producers are morons?
***The final story of the night was a 2:10 piece about injured and orphaned seals that are cared for and rehabbed in an Amsterdam marine life facility. Well, I guess this story was long overdue--it had been a whole month since Nightly News last did a story on seals (12/14/11). That's what I love about the Nightly News producers--they're all about the hard news. Always.
Sun. Jan. 15--Lester read this news flash: "Tonight millions of Americans are dealing with a deep freeze--a blast of Arctic air stretching from Boston to Chicago...." Cold weather in New England! In winter! 31 in Chicago! 26 in Detroit! Below freezing in Canada! OMG! I've never heard of such low temperatures in January! Thanks, Lester!
***A story about Pres. Obama's re-election campaign identified David Axelrod as an "Obama Campaign Strategist". After years of arbitrarily alternating between calling Axelrod an "adviser" and an "advisor", the Nightly News producers finally settled on "strategist" to avoid looking stupid as a result of their constantly changing spellings. And it took them five years to figure this out?
***In that same story, the producers showed October, November and December calendar pages on-screen to illustrate that the President raised $68 million in the last quarter of 2011. On each of these calendars, the week began with Monday and ended with Sunday. Funny thing--every calendar I've ever seen begins the week with Sunday and ends with Saturday. Why are the Nightly News producers using factory-second calendars? Or maybe they're using Mayan or lunar calendars.
***Correspondent Craig Melvin then spent 2:15 on a story about people who share, swap or trade instead of buying and selling. Fascinating--not. This story had a familiar feel to it. I wonder why. Oh yeah--just a few weeks ago (12/27/11) Nightly News did a 2:20 story about how the people of Portland, Maine barter services in lieu of buying and selling. Another rerun on Nightly News.
***The final story was Duncan Golestani's 2:15 piece about Margaret Thatcher. Or more specifically, about Meryl Streep's portrayal of Thatcher in "The Iron Lady". Not surprisingly, as the last story of the night, this story led right into the Red Carpet special that preceded the Golden Globe Awards. So the Streep/Thatcher story was, of course, just a promo for the Golden Globes. The story contained clips from the movie and interviews with Streep. And it also contained 30 seconds of gratuitous Golden Globe clips--mostly featuring George Clooney. Because viewers like to see him and it boosts the ratings.
Mon. Jan. 16--Nightly News devoted the first nine minutes of the broadcast to three reports about the capsized cruise ship off the coast of Italy. First of all, the story could have been fully reported in three minutes. Six people dead, 29 people missing (at that time). There really wasn't much more to say. The other six minutes was just the Nightly News producers milking the story for ratings. In general, the way in which Brian Williams and the Nightly News correspondents covered the story was really very sloppy.
***In his intro to the lead story, Brian referred to the ship as the "Casa" Concordia, rather than the Costa Concordia.
***Also in his intro, Brian said that, "Of the 4200 souls on board, six are dead, 29 still missing...." Souls? Why does Brian always insist on speaking as if he was narrating a trailer for a really bad horror film? Why can't he just say "people"?
***In the second segment about the Costa Concordia, Harry Smith rode out to Giglio Island in a chartered boat to get a closer look at the submerged liner. Here's his bizarre description of the trip: "We went out there with an American boat captain--a yacht captain--who has plied these waters around here and around the world for more than 30 years and what he has to say about the captain and the captain's actions in regard to sailing so close to this tiny island in waters that have been charted for hundreds of years, all the way back to beyond the birth of Christ is something you're gonna want to hear and we'll have that on a report tonight on Rock Center." Wow. That's a long way to go just to promote Rock Center. But Smith should read up on his religious history. If the waters have been charted for "hundreds of years", that wouldn't come close to going back to "beyond the birth of Christ", since Christ was (as legend has it) born more than 2,000 years ago. Smith was off by about 1,500 years. And why is he even mentioning Christ in the first place? It's such an out-of-left-field reference it just leaves us scratching our heads.
***During Tom Costello's segment about rules and regulations of cruise ship evacuations, we were shown a clip of an interview with a Coast Guard officer who is a liaison to the cruise ship industry and who was identified in a Nightly News graphic as "Lt. Commander Dan Brehm US Coast Guard". But in a clip of Brehm that was used on Sunday's Nightly News, he was identified as "Lieutenant Commander Dan Brehm U.S. Coast Guard". Why was he called a "Lieutenant Commander" on Sunday and a "Lt. Commander" on Monday? Why was it "U.S. Coast Guard" on Sunday, but "US Coast Guard" on Monday? Where were the periods? At Nightly News, no one cares about consistency. In fact, no one seems to care the slightest bit about spelling, grammar or syntax. Nightly News is certainly not a professional news organization.
***A story about a change in the inscription on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was identical to a story that had been reported on Saturday. If Lester Holt already told us about it, why did Brian need to tell us about it again? Did this really need to be reported twice? Apparently, a story isn't news unless Brian himself reports it.
***Mike Taibbi spent more than two minutes telling us about a woman and her two kids that were rescued (by Navy Seabees with a heavy-duty forklift) from their car as it teetered precipitously above an overpass after being rear-ended by a truck. We're all glad that they're safe. But two minutes? Come on, now.
***Brian spent 30 seconds on a story that he began with, "There's interesting new research out tonight about how infants learn to talk." The entire video portion of the story consisted of a YouTube clip of two infant twins seemingly having an animated baby-talk conversation with each other. Obviously, the story was concocted solely as an excuse to show the video (this is at least the third time Nightly News has shown this video). If there was any doubt about that, during the story Brian said, "This is just one of our favorite videos." Well, Brian gets to do whatever he wants, so if he wants to show the video, the producers show the video.
***On the previous Thursday (1/12), Brian spent nearly a minute irresponsibly and alarmistly scaring us into thinking that a falling Russian space probe was going to crash into Madagascar and annihilate that island in a fiery explosion. Brian must have been bitterly disappointed on Monday when he had to meekly report that the probe fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean. Yet another example of Brian massively hyping a non-story for maximum shock value for the sole purpose of generating sensationalist ratings. (See also the eight ridiculous stories on the Carmageddon non-event that Nightly News reported in July.)
***This is one of those stories that makes me wonder why the FCC hasn't shut down Nightly News for good. It's also one of those stories that makes me want to vomit. It was an idiotic, pandering 90-second recap of the previous night's Golden Globe Awards, which (of course) had been shown on NBC. The story was formatted like a silent movie (like "The Artist") with no audio dialogue. Instead, the words were written on cards, also like in a silent movie, and the color footage was changed to black and white. Along with footage of George Clooney (naturally) and Meryl Streep, the cards contained inane descriptions like, "It was also a big night for Best Actor George Clooney!" "His movie 'The Descendants' won Best Drama!" "Clooney plays a guy whose wife was cheating on him!" "Meryl Streep won Best Actress for 'The Iron Lady'!" "It was her fifth Best Actress award, but she forgot her glasses!" "But the real star of the night was the dog from 'The Artist'!" "He did tricks on stage!" "Who's a good dog?" Honestly. I mean it. This was an actual story on a network evening newscast. I'm not kidding. And Brian began the story by bragging that, "About 17 million of you watched the Golden Globes last night...." Yes, it's very dignified and professional for a news anchor to brag about his network's ratings. Funny thing--I never hear Brian bragging about the appallingly low ratings for most of the rest of NBC's prime time schedule (including his own Rock Center, which draws an anemic 4 million people each week on average). By the way, other sources (including The New York Times) reported that the show was actually watched by 16.8 million people. Brian certainly knew that when he made his claim of 17 million viewers, but clearly he thought that 17 million sounded much more impressive than 16.8 million. And here's something Brian "neglected" to mention: The Golden Globes' viewership was down from 2011, including a slip of 4% in the important 18-49 demographic. Of course, Brian never reports bad news about NBC so he didn't mention this. (I'm still waiting for Brian to report that NBC lost $225 million on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. I won't hold my breath.)
***The final story of the night was about a six-year-old boy with Down Syndrome who is also a model and actor in commercials. Apparently, the whole point of the story was that children with Down Syndrome are not as different as some might think. That's nice, but why is this news? Meanwhile, the idiotic Anne Thompson talked to this little boy like she was talking to a goldfish. If you're going to do a story meant to show that Down Syndrome children are not so different, don't use a correspondent who's going to talk to the story's subject in such a condescending manner.
***Meanwhile, here are a few of the stories Brian and his producers chose NOT to report on Monday: 1) A building collapsed in Beirut killing at least 26 people. Brian didn't care about this story because most of the people killed were poor or immigrants. And also because they didn't die in a luxury ocean liner. 2) The Pakistani Supreme Court initiated "contempt-of-court proceedings against Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani for failing to pursue corruption charges against his boss, President Asif Ali Zardari." (According to Tuesday's New York Times.) 3) Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan finally backed down from his decision to cut fuel subsidies for the Nigerian people. Riots and strikes over the fuel subsidy cuts had been raging for weeks. 4) Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit rating of the Eurozone bailout fund (the European Financial Stability Facility) from AAA to AA+, potentially making it more difficult for the fund's managers to borrow money. Last week, S & P similarly downgraded the credit rating of France and eight other Eurozone countries--Nightly News still has not reported this. But at least we know all about the Russian space probe, the twin infants who talk to each other and George Clooney and Meryl Streep's great night at the Golden Globe Awards. Great job, Brian. You should be so proud of what you're doing at Nightly News.
Tues. Jan. 17--Brian again told us about the "Winter Blast" in the Pacific Northwest. I wish I had a dollar for every time Brian or Lester said "Winter Blast".
***Mike Taibbi did a 2:10 follow-up story to Monday's report about the woman and her two kids that were rescued from their car as it dangled above a highway overpass. A brief definition: At Nightly News, a "follow-up story" is a way to waste time by showing existing footage (either used or unused) of a story in order to create a second story that is virtually identical to the original story. Follow-up stories are very inexpensive to produce because most or all of the footage has already been filmed. The producers just need to do some editing and record a voice-over and ta-da...instant story. In this case, Taibbi and his producers basically repeated the original story with some added footage of the Seabees who rescued the car's passengers. So over two days, Nightly News spent 4:15 on this one story, rather than reporting on important news going on around the world. Thanks, Nightly News.
***Brian spent a minute telling us about Paula Deen's diabetes. This story had been circulating for days, but Brian reported it on Tuesday because Deen had appeared on that morning's Today Show. Remember, it isn't news unless it happens on NBC. The video that accompanied the segment consisted of Deen talking to Al Roker and doing a cooking demonstration on The Today Show set. As usual, Brian's number one job is to promote other NBC shows. But promoting The Today Show takes on a greater urgency now because the revamping of CBS This Morning makes it a potential threat to The Today Show's ratings. We all recall that in the months before and after Conan O'Brien replaced Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, Brian made it his personal mission to use his broadcast to rabidly promote Leno, Conan and The Tonight Show (as well as Leno's prime-time show). Perhaps the most shameless manifestation of Brian's fawning promotional efforts was on the 4/8/09 Nightly News, when he did a ridiculously gratuitous "Making A Difference" segment on Leno--less than two months before Leno ceded The Tonight Show to Conan! Is it ethical for a news anchor to use his broadcast to promote his network's other shows? I'll leave it to you to decide.
***Because sports and entertainment are a huge part of Nightly News (meaning they boost the broadcast's ratings), Brian did a segment on the birthdays of Muhammad Ali and Betty White. Brian called White an "American icon". Not coincidentally, NBC had aired a birthday tribute to White the previous night. But White's birthday tribute was scheduled to be rebroadcast the following Saturday, so of course Brian's goal was to promote the second airing of the special and increase its ratings. Does anyone believe for a second that Brian would have mentioned White's birthday if her special was airing on another network?
***Brian then spent a combined 75 seconds to tell us about a mistaken water-landing announcement that was broadcast on a British Airways plane and that the average age of Americans' cars is 10.8 years. Fascinating.
***The final story was about the wacky curve ball questions being asked on today's college applications. Some colleges are asking applicants who their favorite superhero is or about their favorite ride in an amusement park. Honestly, it's not nearly as important to find out why colleges are asking silly questions of their applicants as it is to find out why Nightly News is wasting 2:20 telling us about it. Isn't there any real news to report?
Wed. Jan. 18--During a story about the Italian Cruise Ship disaster, a Nightly News graphic identified Adam Smallman as the "Lloyds Head of Content". Actually, it's "Lloyd's". But when have the Nightly News producers ever cared about an apostrophe?
***We were treated to yet another story about the snowstorm in Seattle. Isn't there a better way to allocate two minutes of important Nightly News air time?
***In a story about the world's best and worst airport terminals, Brian told us that, "LaGuardia terminal 5 is the seventh worst in the world...." But on-screen, the graphic read "LaGuardia Terminal C". Kennedy Airport has a terminal 5, LaGuardia doesn't. Brian was wrong, the graphic was right. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the producers used the same animated graphic representation of an airport departure flight board as they did on Saturday--and like Saturday, Anchorage was misspelled as "Ankorage". Making this mistake once was awful. But twice is inexcusable.
***Brian then spent 30 seconds telling us that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was named a Global Cultural Ambassador by the State Department. Thanks, Brian. Good to know.
Thurs. Jan. 19--In a story about the Costa Concordia, Brian said, "Divers are back at work searching that giant wreck...for the 21 souls who are still missing...." Again he said "souls". What the hell is wrong with him?
***In a story about the political revolt in Syria, Brian pronounced the city of Daraa as "Daria". You know, like the late 90's animated MTV series.
***In his story about South Carolina politics, Tom Brokaw told us that Jim DeMint is South Carolina's "most popular senator". Really, Tom? So he's the most popular out of the state's two senators? Wow, what an honor.
***Brian and his producers used the death of freestyle skier Sarah Burke as a shameless promotion for the Olympics. Both Brian and newsidiot Anne Thompson made sure to tell us that Burke was a gold medal hopeful for the 2014 Sochi Games. Real classy move, Brian. But it's certainly not surprising. Nightly News will report any story that's even tangentially related to the Olympics because they're desperate for any opportunity to promote NBC's Olympic coverage (just wait until this summer. Nightly News will become a promotional video for the London Games.). Brian also made a point of saying that Burke "was beautiful". How is that relevant? Does Nightly News cover women differently depending on how attractive they are? Clearly, the answer is "yes". This is typical of Nightly News. On the 2/7/10 broadcast (five days before the Vancouver Olympics began), NBC sports producer Alan Abrahamson said this of Lindsey Vonn: "She's blond, she's pretty...." Apparently, the way in which the Nightly News producers choose to cover women in the news really does depend on what they look like.
***The broadcast ended with a 2:15 story about David Rubenstein, a wealthy philanthropist who donated money to help restore the Washington Monument after it was damaged in last August's earthquake. Brian is clearly obsessed with the Washington Monument. This is the seventh story he has reported about the damage it incurred. And like the other six stories, this one began with a ridiculous animated flag waving behind Brian. Obviously, his goal is to boost his ratings by crassly appealing to his viewers' sense of rah-rah gung-ho God-Bless-America patriotism. But with out a doubt, my favorite part of this report was when the producers gratuitously inserted panda footage into the story as Tom Costello was telling us that Rubenstein had donated $4.5 million to the National Zoo. Boom--cue the pandas! Is there no level to which the Nightly News producers will not stoop in order to pander to the viewers? Why not graphically insert pandas into every news story? Look--there's a panda on the deck of the Costa Concordia! Look--there's Gabby Giffords holding a panda! Look--there's a panda on stage during the Republican debate! The Nightly News producers are absolutely shameless.
Fri. Jan. 20--Brian began the broadcast reporting from Orlando because it's never too early to begin promoting Monday's Republican debate on NBC. The lead story, ostensibly about the Republican candidates (but which was really just a promo for the debate) featured 15 seconds of Stephen Colbert video. Obviously, the producers realize that viewers are bored by politics but love entertainment news. After seven minutes of promoting Monday's debate, Brian told us we could see it "On your NBC station on the NBC television network". Um, Brian, the 1950's called--they want their promotional announcement back. At that point, Brian mercifully turned the remainder of the broadcast over to Lester Holt so he could go enjoy Disney World with his family. Excuse me--I mean Universal Studios. Brian ignores ABC when he reports the news, so he certainly would never patronize a theme park owned by ABC's parent company.
***Lester's first story was the "Winter Blast" which dumped 6-8 inches of snow in Chicago. Give me a break. In Chicago, that's a dusting. The accompanying Weather Channel map forecast one inch of snow in Syracuse, 2-4 inches in Detroit and 3-5 inches in New York, Pittsburgh and Boston. Wow. It's like a new ice age has hit the Northeast. This meager snowfall is a complete non-event, but the Nightly News producers nevertheless saw fit to waste 2:40 of valuable news time on it. Thanks.
***We were shown 35 seconds of video of the President singing an Al Green song. Maybe the producers should have attached a "Breaking News" banner to this story.
***We then saw a 1:35 obituary for Etta James. It felt like deja vu. I wonder why? Oh yeah--it's because Brian already read her obituary on Dec. 16--before she died! That's right--Brian has invented the pre-obituary. It's a way to report twice on the same person's death. Of course, that never seems to be a problem. Brian has also perfected the two-day obituary, in which he reports someone's death a second time on Monday after Lester has already reported it on Sunday. Recently, he has done this with Cardinal John Foley and Tony Blankley. But as we all know, a story isn't really news unless Brian himself reports it.
***The final story of the night was a 2:40 piece about the Tuskegee Airmen and the movie about them, "Red Tails". Why did I also get deja vu from this story. I guess it was because Nightly News already reported the exact same story last Oct. 5. The Tuskegee Airmen and the "Red Tails" movie. The Tuskegee Airmen were great heroes, but do we really need to see this story twice in less than four months? No we don't. But Nightly News is the unofficial propaganda arm of the U.S. Military, and their job is to promote the armed services with stories like this. Twice, if necessary. And let's not forget that this was also an entertainment story (it included 55 seconds of clips from "Red Tails") so that's like the daily double for the Nightly News producers. Make-believe patriotism and movie clips together in one story. Sounds like Nightly News heaven. Meanwhile, on Friday, France suspended training operations in Afghanistan after an Afghan soldier killed four French soldiers and wounded 16 in response to the video of U.S. Marines urinating on Afghan corpses. Nightly News didn't bother to report this story. But at least we know all about the Winter Blast and the President's Al Green moment. Great job, Nightly News producers.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
NBC Nightly News's Bizarre Coverage Of The Italian Cruise Ship Disaster
On Monday, Nightly News devoted the first nine minutes of the broadcast to three reports about the capsized cruise ship off the coast of Italy. First of all, the story could have been fully reported in three minutes. Six people dead, 29 people missing. There's really not much more to say. The other six minutes was just the Nightly News producers milking the story for ratings. But the way in which Brian Williams and the Nightly News correspondents covered the story was really very bizarre.
***In his intro to the lead story, Brian referred to the ship as the "Casa" Concordia, rather than the Costa Concordia.
***Also in his intro, Brian said that, "Of the 4200 souls on board, six are dead, 29 still missing...." Souls? Why does Brian always insist on speaking as if he was narrating a trailer for a really bad horror film? Why can't he just say "people"?
***In the second segment about the Costa Concordia, Harry Smith rode out to Giglio Island in a chartered boat to get a closer look at the submerged liner. Here's his bizarre description of the trip: "We went out there with an American boat captain--a yacht captain--who has plied these waters around here and around the world for more than 30 years and what he has to say about the captain and the captain's actions in regard to sailing so close to this tiny island in waters that have been charted for hundreds of years, all the way back to beyond the birth of Christ is something you're gonna want to hear and we'll have that on a report tonight on Rock Center." Wow. That's a long way to go just to promote Rock Center. But Smith should read up on his religious history. If the waters have been charted for "hundreds of years", that wouldn't come close to going back to "beyond the birth of Christ", since Christ was (as legend has it) born more than 2,000 years ago. Smith was off by about 1,500 years. And why is he even mentioning Christ in the first place? It's such an out-of-left-field reference it just leaves us scratching our heads.
***During Tom Costello's segment about rules and regulations of cruise ship evacuations, we were shown a clip of an interview with a Coast Guard officer who is a liaison to the cruise industry and who was identified in a Nightly News graphic as "Lt. Commander Dan Brehm US Coast Guard". But in a clip of Brehm that was used on Sunday's Nightly News, he was identified as "Lieutenant Commander Dan Brehm U.S. Coast Guard". Why was he called a "Lieutenant Commander" on Sunday and a "Lt. Commander" on Monday? Why was it "U.S. Coast Guard" on Sunday, but "US Coast Guard" on Monday? Where were the periods? At Nightly News, no one cares about consistency. In fact, no one seems to care the slightest bit about spelling, grammar or syntax. Nightly News is certainly not a professional news organization.
Here are a few other things that happened on Monday's Nightly News:
***A story about a change in the inscription on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was identical to Saturday's story. If Lester Holt already told us about it, why did Brian need to tell us about it again? Did this really need to be reported twice? Apparently, a story is not news until Brian himself reports it.
***Brian spent 30 seconds on a story that he began with, "There's interesting new research out tonight about how infants learn to talk." The entire video portion of the story consisted of a YouTube clip of two infant twins seemingly having an animated baby-talk conversation with each other. Obviously, the story was concocted solely as an excuse to show the video (this is at least the third time Nightly News has shown this video). If there is any doubt about that, during the story Brian said, "This is just one of our favorite videos." Well, Brian gets to do whatever he wants, so if he wants to show the video, the producers show the video.
***On Thursday, Brian spent nearly a minute irresponsibly and alarmistly scaring us into thinking that a falling Russian space probe was going to crash into Madagascar and annihilate that island in a fiery explosion. Brian must have been bitterly disappointed on Monday when he had to meekly report that the probe fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean. Yet another example of Brian massively hyping a non-story for maximum shock value for the sole purpose of generating sensationalist ratings. (See also the eight ridiculous stories on the Carmageddon non-event that Nightly News reported in July.)
***This is one of those stories that makes me wonder why the FCC hasn't shut down Nightly News for good. It's also one of those stories that makes me want to vomit. It was an idiotic, pandering 90-second recap of the previous night's Golden Globe Awards, which (naturally) had been shown on NBC. The story was formatted like a silent movie (like "The Artist") with no audio dialogue. Instead, the words were written on cards, also like in a silent movie, and the color footage was changed to black and white. Along with footage of George Clooney (naturally) and Meryl Streep, the cards contained inane descriptions like, "It was also a big night for Best Actor George Clooney!" "His movie 'The Descendants' won Best Drama!" "Clooney plays a guy whose wife was cheating on him!" "Meryl Streep won Best Actress for 'The Iron Lady'!" "It was her fifth Best Actress award, but she forgot her glasses!" "But the real star of the night was the dog from 'The Artist'!" "He did tricks on stage!" "Who's a good dog?" Honestly. I mean it. This was an actual story on a network evening newscast. I'm not kidding. And Brian began the story by bragging that, "About 17 million of you watched the Golden Globes last night...." Yes, it's very dignified and professional for a news anchor to brag about his network's ratings. Funny thing--I never hear Brian bragging about the appallingly low ratings for most of the rest of NBC's prime time schedule (including his own Rock Center, which draws an anemic 4 million people each week on average).
***The final story of the night was about a six-year-old boy with Down Syndrome who is also a model and actor in commercials. Apparently, the whole point of the story was that children with Down Syndrome are not as different as some might think. That's nice, but why is this news? Meanwhile, the idiotic Anne Thompson talked to this little boy like she was talking to a goldfish. If you're going to do a story meant to show that Down Syndrome children are not so different, don't use a correspondent who's going to talk to the story's subject in such a condescending manner.
Meanwhile, here are a few of the stories Brian and his producers chose NOT to report on Monday:
***A building collapsed in Beirut killing at least 26 people. Brian didn't care about this story because most of the people killed were poor or immigrants. And also because they didn't die in a luxury ocean liner.
***The Pakistani Supreme Court initiated "contempt-of-court proceedings against Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani for failing to pursue corruption charges against his boss, President Asif Ali Zardari." (According to Tuesday's New York Times.)
***Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan finally backed down from his decision to cut fuel subsidies for the Nigerian people. Riots and strikes over the fuel subsidy cuts had been raging for weeks.
***Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit rating of the Eurozone bailout fund (the European Financial Stability Facility) from AAA to AA+, potentially making it more difficult for the fund's managers to borrow money. Last week, S & P similarly downgraded the credit rating of France and eight other Eurozone countries--Nightly News still has not reported this. But at least we know all about the Russian space probe, the twin infants who talk to each other and George Clooney and Meryl Streep's great night at the Golden Globe Awards. Great job, Brian. You should be so proud of what you're doing at Nightly News.
***In his intro to the lead story, Brian referred to the ship as the "Casa" Concordia, rather than the Costa Concordia.
***Also in his intro, Brian said that, "Of the 4200 souls on board, six are dead, 29 still missing...." Souls? Why does Brian always insist on speaking as if he was narrating a trailer for a really bad horror film? Why can't he just say "people"?
***In the second segment about the Costa Concordia, Harry Smith rode out to Giglio Island in a chartered boat to get a closer look at the submerged liner. Here's his bizarre description of the trip: "We went out there with an American boat captain--a yacht captain--who has plied these waters around here and around the world for more than 30 years and what he has to say about the captain and the captain's actions in regard to sailing so close to this tiny island in waters that have been charted for hundreds of years, all the way back to beyond the birth of Christ is something you're gonna want to hear and we'll have that on a report tonight on Rock Center." Wow. That's a long way to go just to promote Rock Center. But Smith should read up on his religious history. If the waters have been charted for "hundreds of years", that wouldn't come close to going back to "beyond the birth of Christ", since Christ was (as legend has it) born more than 2,000 years ago. Smith was off by about 1,500 years. And why is he even mentioning Christ in the first place? It's such an out-of-left-field reference it just leaves us scratching our heads.
***During Tom Costello's segment about rules and regulations of cruise ship evacuations, we were shown a clip of an interview with a Coast Guard officer who is a liaison to the cruise industry and who was identified in a Nightly News graphic as "Lt. Commander Dan Brehm US Coast Guard". But in a clip of Brehm that was used on Sunday's Nightly News, he was identified as "Lieutenant Commander Dan Brehm U.S. Coast Guard". Why was he called a "Lieutenant Commander" on Sunday and a "Lt. Commander" on Monday? Why was it "U.S. Coast Guard" on Sunday, but "US Coast Guard" on Monday? Where were the periods? At Nightly News, no one cares about consistency. In fact, no one seems to care the slightest bit about spelling, grammar or syntax. Nightly News is certainly not a professional news organization.
Here are a few other things that happened on Monday's Nightly News:
***A story about a change in the inscription on the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial was identical to Saturday's story. If Lester Holt already told us about it, why did Brian need to tell us about it again? Did this really need to be reported twice? Apparently, a story is not news until Brian himself reports it.
***Brian spent 30 seconds on a story that he began with, "There's interesting new research out tonight about how infants learn to talk." The entire video portion of the story consisted of a YouTube clip of two infant twins seemingly having an animated baby-talk conversation with each other. Obviously, the story was concocted solely as an excuse to show the video (this is at least the third time Nightly News has shown this video). If there is any doubt about that, during the story Brian said, "This is just one of our favorite videos." Well, Brian gets to do whatever he wants, so if he wants to show the video, the producers show the video.
***On Thursday, Brian spent nearly a minute irresponsibly and alarmistly scaring us into thinking that a falling Russian space probe was going to crash into Madagascar and annihilate that island in a fiery explosion. Brian must have been bitterly disappointed on Monday when he had to meekly report that the probe fell harmlessly into the Pacific Ocean. Yet another example of Brian massively hyping a non-story for maximum shock value for the sole purpose of generating sensationalist ratings. (See also the eight ridiculous stories on the Carmageddon non-event that Nightly News reported in July.)
***This is one of those stories that makes me wonder why the FCC hasn't shut down Nightly News for good. It's also one of those stories that makes me want to vomit. It was an idiotic, pandering 90-second recap of the previous night's Golden Globe Awards, which (naturally) had been shown on NBC. The story was formatted like a silent movie (like "The Artist") with no audio dialogue. Instead, the words were written on cards, also like in a silent movie, and the color footage was changed to black and white. Along with footage of George Clooney (naturally) and Meryl Streep, the cards contained inane descriptions like, "It was also a big night for Best Actor George Clooney!" "His movie 'The Descendants' won Best Drama!" "Clooney plays a guy whose wife was cheating on him!" "Meryl Streep won Best Actress for 'The Iron Lady'!" "It was her fifth Best Actress award, but she forgot her glasses!" "But the real star of the night was the dog from 'The Artist'!" "He did tricks on stage!" "Who's a good dog?" Honestly. I mean it. This was an actual story on a network evening newscast. I'm not kidding. And Brian began the story by bragging that, "About 17 million of you watched the Golden Globes last night...." Yes, it's very dignified and professional for a news anchor to brag about his network's ratings. Funny thing--I never hear Brian bragging about the appallingly low ratings for most of the rest of NBC's prime time schedule (including his own Rock Center, which draws an anemic 4 million people each week on average).
***The final story of the night was about a six-year-old boy with Down Syndrome who is also a model and actor in commercials. Apparently, the whole point of the story was that children with Down Syndrome are not as different as some might think. That's nice, but why is this news? Meanwhile, the idiotic Anne Thompson talked to this little boy like she was talking to a goldfish. If you're going to do a story meant to show that Down Syndrome children are not so different, don't use a correspondent who's going to talk to the story's subject in such a condescending manner.
Meanwhile, here are a few of the stories Brian and his producers chose NOT to report on Monday:
***A building collapsed in Beirut killing at least 26 people. Brian didn't care about this story because most of the people killed were poor or immigrants. And also because they didn't die in a luxury ocean liner.
***The Pakistani Supreme Court initiated "contempt-of-court proceedings against Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani for failing to pursue corruption charges against his boss, President Asif Ali Zardari." (According to Tuesday's New York Times.)
***Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan finally backed down from his decision to cut fuel subsidies for the Nigerian people. Riots and strikes over the fuel subsidy cuts had been raging for weeks.
***Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit rating of the Eurozone bailout fund (the European Financial Stability Facility) from AAA to AA+, potentially making it more difficult for the fund's managers to borrow money. Last week, S & P similarly downgraded the credit rating of France and eight other Eurozone countries--Nightly News still has not reported this. But at least we know all about the Russian space probe, the twin infants who talk to each other and George Clooney and Meryl Streep's great night at the Golden Globe Awards. Great job, Brian. You should be so proud of what you're doing at Nightly News.
Friday, January 13, 2012
NBC Nightly News Show Notes--1/7 Through 1/13
Here's what you may have missed on NBC Nightly News this past week:
Saturday Jan. 7--There was no Nightly News Saturday because obviously NFL football is much more important than news to the NBC weasels.
Sunday Jan. 8--Nightly News spent nearly eight minutes reporting on the Republican Presidential candidates. Much of that time was devoted to rehashing Sunday's Republican Presidential debate that took place on "Meet The Press" that morning, but they barely acknowledged Saturday night's debate on ABC. (Lester Holt mentioned Saturday's debate once in passing, but never mentioned ABC.) Meanwhile, on ABC's World News Sunday, anchor David Muir not only mentioned the "Meet The Press" debate, but also showed clips from it. Obviously, ABC's main priority is reporting the news while NBC's main priority is self-promotion and playing childish "you-don't-really-exist" games with the other networks.
***We got a 30-second story about an Australian bungee jumper who plunged into an African river when her cable broke. Breaking news if I've ever seen it.
***The final story was a ridiculous two-and-a-half minute piece about law students using dogs to help them relax while studying. The producers played three promos for this story, including two that featured the Osmond's 1972 song "Puppy Love". You're probably thinking that I got confused and I actually saw this piece on Animal Planet, but no, trust me--it was on NBC Nightly News--a supposedly professional news broadcast. Stories on dogs mean good ratings for Nightly News, which is why they've done 14 stories about dogs in the past 5 months. Of course it's not just dogs that help the Nightly News ratings. In the past 10 months, Nightly News has done at least 56 stories about animals, including cats, whales, bears, pandas, penguins, polar bears, koalas and lions. Obviously, ratings matter much more than news to Brian Williams and his producers. And by the way, using pop songs as promos for silly animal stories is a cheap ploy and not something a professional news organization would do. Then again, no one has ever accused NBC Nightly News of being a professional news organization.
Monday Jan. 9--This was clearly a day of reruns at Nightly News. Brian Williams spent 1:45 talking with David Gregory about Sunday's "Meet the Press" Republican Presidential debate. But on Sunday, Lester Holt already had a 1:35 discussion with David Gregory about the debate. There wasn't anything new to report--they just went over yesterday's news. And like Lester on Sunday, Brian refused to mention Saturday's ABC debate because he has a strict policy of not mentioning the other networks.
***We saw a two-minute story about Gabby Giffords' public appearance Sunday to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of the Tucson shootings. The event took place on Sunday and it was covered that night on Nightly News. Monday's story on Giffords was virtually identical to Sunday's story--there was no new information so we mostly saw the same footage that had been shown Sunday. The only real difference was that Miguel Almaguer recorded a new voice-over for Monday's story in a silly attempt to make the stories seem different.
***We also saw a 25-second story about the Australian bungee jumper who plunged into an African river when her bungee cord snapped. Why does that seem familiar? Oh yeah--now I remember. Nightly News reported the exact same story on Sunday. But it must have been really hard to trim those five seconds off of Sunday's story.
***We were shown a 40-second obituary for Tony Blankley. We had already seen a 20-second obit for Blankley on the previous night's broadcast. Was Blankley really so important that he merited obits on two consecutive Nightly News broadcasts? But there was one important difference in the two obituaries. Sunday's obit showed the years "1948-2012" on-screen below Blankley's photo. Monday's obit showed the years "1949-2012" on-screen below Blankley's photo. It's laughable that the Nightly News producers could give Blankley two different years of birth on two different days. But that's how things are at Nightly News. No one cares.
***Luckily, not every story on Monday's broadcast was a rerun from Sunday. We were treated to a marvelous story about how Kate Middleton celebrated her 30th birthday. She went to see "War Horse"! She cried! OMG! By the way, this is only the 22nd Kate Middleton story Nightly News has run in the past seven months, so we're not even close to the saturation point. I'm surprised that Brian didn't lead with this story, considering his obsession with all things Kate.
***Then we saw some mesmerizing footage of George Romney from 1967. I'm not sure why this was relevant, other than to allow Brian to plug a longer version of the Romney story that would be airing later on "Rock Center". Is it really ethical for Brian to take more than a minute from Nightly News in order to plug his prime-time show? Oh well, what do I know. Ethics doesn't matter; plugging "Rock Center" matters.
***Next, Brian spent 30 seconds telling us about recalls of Bufferin and Excedrin. Those brands compete directly with Bayer, which is by far the most frequent advertiser on Nightly News (its pain-relief products include Bayer aspirin, Alka-Seltzer and Aleve). So bad news for Excedrin and Bufferin is very helpful to Bayer. But I'm sure that had absolutely nothing to do with Brian's decision to air the Bufferin/Excedrin recall story. Because Brian doesn't use his broadcast to help his sponsors. Never ever. And if you believe that, there's a bridge over the East River I'd like to sell you.
***The final story of the night was a 2:45 piece about the popularity of the PBS series "Downton Abbey". Wow, 2:45--that's really long. They could have aired two actual news stories in that time. But I'll say this--at least Stephanie Gosk had the ethical integrity to disclose that "Downton Abbey" is produced by a company owned by NBC Universal. So the piece was shown for the sole purpose of promoting an NBC property, but at least Gosk told us the truth. I'm not sure how Brian allowed that disclosure into the story--I'm guessing he wasn't aware of it until it actually aired. Meanwhile, on Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met in Berlin to discuss ways to salvage the economic future of Europe. Brian didn't report this story because obviously it wasn't important enough. But at least we know all about Kate's 30th birthday and "Downton Abbey". Great job, Brian. Keep up the good work.
Tuesday Jan. 10--While talking to Brian about Jon Huntsman, Andrea Mitchell mentioned that Huntsman's father made a fortune by inventing the fast food clamshell package. Brian immediately chimed in with "the Big Mac container" because he's incapable of passing up a chance to plug McDonald's. How much does McDonald's pay Brian to plug their products, anyway?
***A story about the Supreme Court case involving censorship on network television contained a 15-second clip of Bono cursing during the 2003 Golden Globe Awards. Certainly there was no shortage of clips the producers could have used for this story (remember Janet Jackson at the 2004 Super Bowl?). But obviously Brian ordered his producers to use the Bono clip because Brian makes a point of including Bono (and Springsteen and Bon Jovi) on as many of his broadcasts as possible each year. Brian gets to do whatever the hell he wants. And don't you forget it.
***During a story about snow in Alaska, the Nightly News producers correctly spelled "Juneau" on a map. On the 12/25/11 Nightly News, the producers spelled the state capital as "Juno". You know--like the movie. So I congratulate the producers for getting it right. See--not everything I write about Nightly News is harsh and critical.
***The final story was Brian's two-and-a-half minute overly-long profile of Dorothy Robie, co-owner of Robie's Country Store in Hooksett, New Hampshire. The store is a regular stop for politicians campaigning in the New Hampshire primary. Note to Brian: It might have been more informative to spend that time reporting on the actual candidates, rather than on someone who has only briefly met the candidates. At the end of the story, Brian's closing comment was, "How 'bout that--a picture of Mitt Romney's fathah," using his best fake New England accent. Wherever he goes, Brian loves to make fun of the local yokels.
Wednesday Jan. 11--The lead story was outgoing Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's pardon of 214 prisoners before leaving office. Brian ended the report by calling it an "amazing story". Five seconds later, introducing a story about the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, he said, "Americans woke up to an amazing story this morning from overseas...." I guess "amazing" was the Sesame Street Word of the Day. Here's an idea for Brian: Just report the news. We'll decide what's amazing.
***A story about Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and the other Republican candidates included a clip of Michael Douglas from "Wall Street". This isn't surprising--Brian has a huge man-crush on Douglas and shows his clips frequently on Nightly News (in addition to being introduced by Douglas each night at the beginning of the broadcast).
***We got a 2:15 story on Michelle Obama because the NBC News research department has informed Brian and his producers that stories on Mrs. Obama are very popular and generate high ratings.
***Pete Williams continues to be my hero. Once again, when Brian introduced him with a treacly "Good evening, Pete", he held his ground and refused to say "Good evening, Brian". At least there is one person at Nightly News who understands that news is about reporting important events, rather than feeding the ego of an anchor who is desperate to convince the viewers that the correspondents really, really like him.
***Brian began a story on Hostess's filing for bankruptcy by saying, "A lot of us like their products a lot more than we'd be willing to admit in public...." A lot of us. Because the news is always first and foremost about Brian.
***Brian then took thirty seconds to report the breaking news story of a little girl at the Wellington Zoo who was watching a snarling lion through the glass partition. Brian then told us that the Wellington Zoo was in New England. Actually, it's in New Zealand. He was only off by around 9,000 miles. Seriously, someone needs to buy Brian an atlas. By the way, last June 17, Brian reported a breaking news story about...a little boy at a Colorado zoo who was watching a snarling lion through the glass partition. I think it's fair to say that Brian has the little-kid-watches-snarling-lion-behind-glass-partition stories totally covered. Because Brian is all about the hard news.
***The crack investigative team at Nightly News brought us a 2:10 story about the dangers of yoga. Imagine--people can get injured doing yoga. Who knew? Why wasn't this the night's lead story? Why aren't the "occupy" people making this their lead message?
Thursday Jan. 12--Here's how Brian began the night's lead story about the U.S. Marines who urinated on Taliban corpses: "If you have a combat veteran in your household or your family perhaps they can tell you what happens over there--what happens to young men who volunteer for duty at 18 years of age and find themselves in withering daily combat fighting an insurgency in an unforgiving place sometimes over multiple combat tours." Not surprisingly, Brian is making excuses for the Marines' actions. Because Brian is the Chief Propagandist for the U.S. Military. I'm surprised he didn't stand up and scream "Ooh-rah!"
***We saw a 2:40 story about snow in the Midwest, New England and Alaska. In January. As if this is some sort of breaking news. Within this story, there was a fifteen-second clip of Al Roker, Ann Curry and Matt Lauer battling the elements outside on The Today Show. By contrast, The CBS Evening News spent a total of 20 seconds reporting on the winter weather. Because that's all the story deserved. The Nightly News clip from The Today Show was almost as long as CBS's entire weather story! We can only wonder if Nightly News is going to waste as much time reporting on snow in January as they did reporting on hot weather in August.
***A story on the second anniversary of the Haiti earthquake showed old footage of--surprise--Brian Williams in Haiti. Whenever Nightly News does a follow-up story like this, Brian orders his producers to include old footage of him because the news is always about Brian. By the way, in a few weeks it will be the second anniversary of the day Brian completely dropped the Haiti earthquake story to start covering the Vancouver Olympics. I wonder if he'll mention this anniversary on the air.
***Brian then spent 50 seconds reporting on the Russian space probe that will fall to earth on Sunday. Brian spends an awful lot of time reporting on space junk falling to earth. But, as we all know, Brian gets to do whatever he wants. Brian ended the story by telling us that the probe may hit Madagascar. "If so they'll have to move it, move it," he said. Brian is apparently so desperate to appear hip and cool that he has now taken to incorporating Black Eyed Peas lyrics into his news stories. I can't wait to hear Brian say, "You can go hard or you can go home" to describe the next Republican candidate to drop out of the presidential race.
***Brian spent more than a minute telling us about a ringing cell phone that disrupted a performance of the New York Philharmonic. I'll say this: A ringing cell phone at a Philharmonic concert is almost as annoying and incompetent as a fire alarm blaring continuously through an evening newscast. If you don't get the reference, watch a rebroadcast of the 11/29/11 Nightly News (or search Google or Youtube for key words like "NBC Nightly News fire alarm Brian Williams").
***The broadcast ended with a 2:05 story about Samantha Garvey, a high school senior who is a semi-finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search despite being homeless. We all wish her well, but in what alternate universe is this considered news?
Friday Jan. 13--Leading into a story about the Republican Presidential candidates, Brian told us that Peter Alexander was in "Columbia, South Carolina", although the caption below Alexander clearly read "Hilton Head, SC". Oh well, Brian was only off by 160 miles. That's much less than he was off by when he told us that Wellington was in New England.
***Brian and his pals at The Weather Channel needed more than a minute-and-a-half to tell us about a few inches of snow in Cleveland. In January! Well I never heard of such a thing!
***In another pointless piece from the "Duh, really?" file, dimwit Anne Thompson took nearly three minutes to tell us that we should start saving for our retirement. But this piece wasn't on Nightly News because it was an important news story. It was just a marketing magnet. In the commercial break immediately before this story, a Charles Schwab commercial aired with the tag line "Let's Talk About Retirement." Obviously, Nightly News only included this "news story" as a way of attracting sponsors like Charles Schwab. It's called a tie-in. So it doesn't matter that the story had no actual information to offer. That wasn't the point of the story. Bringing in new sponsors was the point of the story. The Nightly News ad sales reps, rather than the news producers, probably came up with the story concept. And it worked. Well done.
***Next, we saw another story about Samantha Garvey, the high school senior who was profiled on Thursday's broadcast. She won't be homeless much longer because Suffolk County officials gave her family a home! So now we've spent nearly four minutes over two days learning all about Samantha Garvey. Because obviously, there was no real news to report. Brian ended the story by saying, "We'll stay on this story." Gee, ya think? Obviously, Samantha Garvey is the new Mary Thornberry. Viewers may recall that last February, during the uprising in Cairo, Nightly News spent an astonishing 14 minutes reporting seven stories about Thornberry, an American who was temporarily trapped in her Cairo apartment. They shamelessly milked the story and made it into a running soap opera, culminating with Brian's three-and-a-half minute interview with Thornberry on the 2/7/11 Nightly News. Considering that Brian and his producers have only 22 minutes each night to report all the important news going on across the country and around the world, it's journalistic malpractice to include pointless stories about Mary Thornberry and Samantha Garvey. But Brian knows that human interest stories (no matter how irrelevant) garner higher ratings than actual news, so he's not about to abandon this practice anytime soon.
***The final three minutes of Nightly News (obviously, the word "News" in the show's title is only a suggestion) was devoted to the 60th anniversary of The Today Show. To put it bluntly, this sickening story was just NBC masturbating itself. Look--there's Barbara Walters! And Katie! And Meredith and Bryant! Awesome! So let's recap Friday's broadcast. After the 10-minute mark, the "news stories" we saw were about snowy weather in January, how to prepare for retirement, Samantha Garvey's life story and The Today Show's 60th anniversary (there was also a 50-second obituary for news correspondent Richard Threlkeld thrown in). Meanwhile, on Friday Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit rating of France and eight other Eurozone countries, but Brian never mentioned this because obviously it wasn't important enough. But at least we know all about Samantha Garvey and The Today Show's 60th anniversary. And that's what's really important.
Saturday Jan. 7--There was no Nightly News Saturday because obviously NFL football is much more important than news to the NBC weasels.
Sunday Jan. 8--Nightly News spent nearly eight minutes reporting on the Republican Presidential candidates. Much of that time was devoted to rehashing Sunday's Republican Presidential debate that took place on "Meet The Press" that morning, but they barely acknowledged Saturday night's debate on ABC. (Lester Holt mentioned Saturday's debate once in passing, but never mentioned ABC.) Meanwhile, on ABC's World News Sunday, anchor David Muir not only mentioned the "Meet The Press" debate, but also showed clips from it. Obviously, ABC's main priority is reporting the news while NBC's main priority is self-promotion and playing childish "you-don't-really-exist" games with the other networks.
***We got a 30-second story about an Australian bungee jumper who plunged into an African river when her cable broke. Breaking news if I've ever seen it.
***The final story was a ridiculous two-and-a-half minute piece about law students using dogs to help them relax while studying. The producers played three promos for this story, including two that featured the Osmond's 1972 song "Puppy Love". You're probably thinking that I got confused and I actually saw this piece on Animal Planet, but no, trust me--it was on NBC Nightly News--a supposedly professional news broadcast. Stories on dogs mean good ratings for Nightly News, which is why they've done 14 stories about dogs in the past 5 months. Of course it's not just dogs that help the Nightly News ratings. In the past 10 months, Nightly News has done at least 56 stories about animals, including cats, whales, bears, pandas, penguins, polar bears, koalas and lions. Obviously, ratings matter much more than news to Brian Williams and his producers. And by the way, using pop songs as promos for silly animal stories is a cheap ploy and not something a professional news organization would do. Then again, no one has ever accused NBC Nightly News of being a professional news organization.
Monday Jan. 9--This was clearly a day of reruns at Nightly News. Brian Williams spent 1:45 talking with David Gregory about Sunday's "Meet the Press" Republican Presidential debate. But on Sunday, Lester Holt already had a 1:35 discussion with David Gregory about the debate. There wasn't anything new to report--they just went over yesterday's news. And like Lester on Sunday, Brian refused to mention Saturday's ABC debate because he has a strict policy of not mentioning the other networks.
***We saw a two-minute story about Gabby Giffords' public appearance Sunday to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of the Tucson shootings. The event took place on Sunday and it was covered that night on Nightly News. Monday's story on Giffords was virtually identical to Sunday's story--there was no new information so we mostly saw the same footage that had been shown Sunday. The only real difference was that Miguel Almaguer recorded a new voice-over for Monday's story in a silly attempt to make the stories seem different.
***We also saw a 25-second story about the Australian bungee jumper who plunged into an African river when her bungee cord snapped. Why does that seem familiar? Oh yeah--now I remember. Nightly News reported the exact same story on Sunday. But it must have been really hard to trim those five seconds off of Sunday's story.
***We were shown a 40-second obituary for Tony Blankley. We had already seen a 20-second obit for Blankley on the previous night's broadcast. Was Blankley really so important that he merited obits on two consecutive Nightly News broadcasts? But there was one important difference in the two obituaries. Sunday's obit showed the years "1948-2012" on-screen below Blankley's photo. Monday's obit showed the years "1949-2012" on-screen below Blankley's photo. It's laughable that the Nightly News producers could give Blankley two different years of birth on two different days. But that's how things are at Nightly News. No one cares.
***Luckily, not every story on Monday's broadcast was a rerun from Sunday. We were treated to a marvelous story about how Kate Middleton celebrated her 30th birthday. She went to see "War Horse"! She cried! OMG! By the way, this is only the 22nd Kate Middleton story Nightly News has run in the past seven months, so we're not even close to the saturation point. I'm surprised that Brian didn't lead with this story, considering his obsession with all things Kate.
***Then we saw some mesmerizing footage of George Romney from 1967. I'm not sure why this was relevant, other than to allow Brian to plug a longer version of the Romney story that would be airing later on "Rock Center". Is it really ethical for Brian to take more than a minute from Nightly News in order to plug his prime-time show? Oh well, what do I know. Ethics doesn't matter; plugging "Rock Center" matters.
***Next, Brian spent 30 seconds telling us about recalls of Bufferin and Excedrin. Those brands compete directly with Bayer, which is by far the most frequent advertiser on Nightly News (its pain-relief products include Bayer aspirin, Alka-Seltzer and Aleve). So bad news for Excedrin and Bufferin is very helpful to Bayer. But I'm sure that had absolutely nothing to do with Brian's decision to air the Bufferin/Excedrin recall story. Because Brian doesn't use his broadcast to help his sponsors. Never ever. And if you believe that, there's a bridge over the East River I'd like to sell you.
***The final story of the night was a 2:45 piece about the popularity of the PBS series "Downton Abbey". Wow, 2:45--that's really long. They could have aired two actual news stories in that time. But I'll say this--at least Stephanie Gosk had the ethical integrity to disclose that "Downton Abbey" is produced by a company owned by NBC Universal. So the piece was shown for the sole purpose of promoting an NBC property, but at least Gosk told us the truth. I'm not sure how Brian allowed that disclosure into the story--I'm guessing he wasn't aware of it until it actually aired. Meanwhile, on Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met in Berlin to discuss ways to salvage the economic future of Europe. Brian didn't report this story because obviously it wasn't important enough. But at least we know all about Kate's 30th birthday and "Downton Abbey". Great job, Brian. Keep up the good work.
Tuesday Jan. 10--While talking to Brian about Jon Huntsman, Andrea Mitchell mentioned that Huntsman's father made a fortune by inventing the fast food clamshell package. Brian immediately chimed in with "the Big Mac container" because he's incapable of passing up a chance to plug McDonald's. How much does McDonald's pay Brian to plug their products, anyway?
***A story about the Supreme Court case involving censorship on network television contained a 15-second clip of Bono cursing during the 2003 Golden Globe Awards. Certainly there was no shortage of clips the producers could have used for this story (remember Janet Jackson at the 2004 Super Bowl?). But obviously Brian ordered his producers to use the Bono clip because Brian makes a point of including Bono (and Springsteen and Bon Jovi) on as many of his broadcasts as possible each year. Brian gets to do whatever the hell he wants. And don't you forget it.
***During a story about snow in Alaska, the Nightly News producers correctly spelled "Juneau" on a map. On the 12/25/11 Nightly News, the producers spelled the state capital as "Juno". You know--like the movie. So I congratulate the producers for getting it right. See--not everything I write about Nightly News is harsh and critical.
***The final story was Brian's two-and-a-half minute overly-long profile of Dorothy Robie, co-owner of Robie's Country Store in Hooksett, New Hampshire. The store is a regular stop for politicians campaigning in the New Hampshire primary. Note to Brian: It might have been more informative to spend that time reporting on the actual candidates, rather than on someone who has only briefly met the candidates. At the end of the story, Brian's closing comment was, "How 'bout that--a picture of Mitt Romney's fathah," using his best fake New England accent. Wherever he goes, Brian loves to make fun of the local yokels.
Wednesday Jan. 11--The lead story was outgoing Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour's pardon of 214 prisoners before leaving office. Brian ended the report by calling it an "amazing story". Five seconds later, introducing a story about the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist, he said, "Americans woke up to an amazing story this morning from overseas...." I guess "amazing" was the Sesame Street Word of the Day. Here's an idea for Brian: Just report the news. We'll decide what's amazing.
***A story about Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and the other Republican candidates included a clip of Michael Douglas from "Wall Street". This isn't surprising--Brian has a huge man-crush on Douglas and shows his clips frequently on Nightly News (in addition to being introduced by Douglas each night at the beginning of the broadcast).
***We got a 2:15 story on Michelle Obama because the NBC News research department has informed Brian and his producers that stories on Mrs. Obama are very popular and generate high ratings.
***Pete Williams continues to be my hero. Once again, when Brian introduced him with a treacly "Good evening, Pete", he held his ground and refused to say "Good evening, Brian". At least there is one person at Nightly News who understands that news is about reporting important events, rather than feeding the ego of an anchor who is desperate to convince the viewers that the correspondents really, really like him.
***Brian began a story on Hostess's filing for bankruptcy by saying, "A lot of us like their products a lot more than we'd be willing to admit in public...." A lot of us. Because the news is always first and foremost about Brian.
***Brian then took thirty seconds to report the breaking news story of a little girl at the Wellington Zoo who was watching a snarling lion through the glass partition. Brian then told us that the Wellington Zoo was in New England. Actually, it's in New Zealand. He was only off by around 9,000 miles. Seriously, someone needs to buy Brian an atlas. By the way, last June 17, Brian reported a breaking news story about...a little boy at a Colorado zoo who was watching a snarling lion through the glass partition. I think it's fair to say that Brian has the little-kid-watches-snarling-lion-behind-glass-partition stories totally covered. Because Brian is all about the hard news.
***The crack investigative team at Nightly News brought us a 2:10 story about the dangers of yoga. Imagine--people can get injured doing yoga. Who knew? Why wasn't this the night's lead story? Why aren't the "occupy" people making this their lead message?
Thursday Jan. 12--Here's how Brian began the night's lead story about the U.S. Marines who urinated on Taliban corpses: "If you have a combat veteran in your household or your family perhaps they can tell you what happens over there--what happens to young men who volunteer for duty at 18 years of age and find themselves in withering daily combat fighting an insurgency in an unforgiving place sometimes over multiple combat tours." Not surprisingly, Brian is making excuses for the Marines' actions. Because Brian is the Chief Propagandist for the U.S. Military. I'm surprised he didn't stand up and scream "Ooh-rah!"
***We saw a 2:40 story about snow in the Midwest, New England and Alaska. In January. As if this is some sort of breaking news. Within this story, there was a fifteen-second clip of Al Roker, Ann Curry and Matt Lauer battling the elements outside on The Today Show. By contrast, The CBS Evening News spent a total of 20 seconds reporting on the winter weather. Because that's all the story deserved. The Nightly News clip from The Today Show was almost as long as CBS's entire weather story! We can only wonder if Nightly News is going to waste as much time reporting on snow in January as they did reporting on hot weather in August.
***A story on the second anniversary of the Haiti earthquake showed old footage of--surprise--Brian Williams in Haiti. Whenever Nightly News does a follow-up story like this, Brian orders his producers to include old footage of him because the news is always about Brian. By the way, in a few weeks it will be the second anniversary of the day Brian completely dropped the Haiti earthquake story to start covering the Vancouver Olympics. I wonder if he'll mention this anniversary on the air.
***Brian then spent 50 seconds reporting on the Russian space probe that will fall to earth on Sunday. Brian spends an awful lot of time reporting on space junk falling to earth. But, as we all know, Brian gets to do whatever he wants. Brian ended the story by telling us that the probe may hit Madagascar. "If so they'll have to move it, move it," he said. Brian is apparently so desperate to appear hip and cool that he has now taken to incorporating Black Eyed Peas lyrics into his news stories. I can't wait to hear Brian say, "You can go hard or you can go home" to describe the next Republican candidate to drop out of the presidential race.
***Brian spent more than a minute telling us about a ringing cell phone that disrupted a performance of the New York Philharmonic. I'll say this: A ringing cell phone at a Philharmonic concert is almost as annoying and incompetent as a fire alarm blaring continuously through an evening newscast. If you don't get the reference, watch a rebroadcast of the 11/29/11 Nightly News (or search Google or Youtube for key words like "NBC Nightly News fire alarm Brian Williams").
***The broadcast ended with a 2:05 story about Samantha Garvey, a high school senior who is a semi-finalist in the Intel Science Talent Search despite being homeless. We all wish her well, but in what alternate universe is this considered news?
Friday Jan. 13--Leading into a story about the Republican Presidential candidates, Brian told us that Peter Alexander was in "Columbia, South Carolina", although the caption below Alexander clearly read "Hilton Head, SC". Oh well, Brian was only off by 160 miles. That's much less than he was off by when he told us that Wellington was in New England.
***Brian and his pals at The Weather Channel needed more than a minute-and-a-half to tell us about a few inches of snow in Cleveland. In January! Well I never heard of such a thing!
***In another pointless piece from the "Duh, really?" file, dimwit Anne Thompson took nearly three minutes to tell us that we should start saving for our retirement. But this piece wasn't on Nightly News because it was an important news story. It was just a marketing magnet. In the commercial break immediately before this story, a Charles Schwab commercial aired with the tag line "Let's Talk About Retirement." Obviously, Nightly News only included this "news story" as a way of attracting sponsors like Charles Schwab. It's called a tie-in. So it doesn't matter that the story had no actual information to offer. That wasn't the point of the story. Bringing in new sponsors was the point of the story. The Nightly News ad sales reps, rather than the news producers, probably came up with the story concept. And it worked. Well done.
***Next, we saw another story about Samantha Garvey, the high school senior who was profiled on Thursday's broadcast. She won't be homeless much longer because Suffolk County officials gave her family a home! So now we've spent nearly four minutes over two days learning all about Samantha Garvey. Because obviously, there was no real news to report. Brian ended the story by saying, "We'll stay on this story." Gee, ya think? Obviously, Samantha Garvey is the new Mary Thornberry. Viewers may recall that last February, during the uprising in Cairo, Nightly News spent an astonishing 14 minutes reporting seven stories about Thornberry, an American who was temporarily trapped in her Cairo apartment. They shamelessly milked the story and made it into a running soap opera, culminating with Brian's three-and-a-half minute interview with Thornberry on the 2/7/11 Nightly News. Considering that Brian and his producers have only 22 minutes each night to report all the important news going on across the country and around the world, it's journalistic malpractice to include pointless stories about Mary Thornberry and Samantha Garvey. But Brian knows that human interest stories (no matter how irrelevant) garner higher ratings than actual news, so he's not about to abandon this practice anytime soon.
***The final three minutes of Nightly News (obviously, the word "News" in the show's title is only a suggestion) was devoted to the 60th anniversary of The Today Show. To put it bluntly, this sickening story was just NBC masturbating itself. Look--there's Barbara Walters! And Katie! And Meredith and Bryant! Awesome! So let's recap Friday's broadcast. After the 10-minute mark, the "news stories" we saw were about snowy weather in January, how to prepare for retirement, Samantha Garvey's life story and The Today Show's 60th anniversary (there was also a 50-second obituary for news correspondent Richard Threlkeld thrown in). Meanwhile, on Friday Standard & Poor's downgraded the credit rating of France and eight other Eurozone countries, but Brian never mentioned this because obviously it wasn't important enough. But at least we know all about Samantha Garvey and The Today Show's 60th anniversary. And that's what's really important.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Brian Williams Reports From Wellington, New England
On Wednesday's NBC Nightly News, Brian Williams reported the breaking news story of a little girl at the Wellington Zoo who was watching a snarling lion through the glass partition. Brian then told us that the Wellington Zoo was in New England. Actually, it's in New Zealand. He was only off by around 9,000 miles. Seriously, someone needs to buy Brian an atlas. By the way, last June 17, Brian reported a breaking news story about...a little boy watching a snarling lion behind the glass partition at a Colorado zoo. I think it's fair to say that Brian Williams has the little-kid-watches-snarling-lion-behind-glass stories totally covered. Because Brian is all about the hard news. Also on Wednesday, Nightly News brought us a riveting two-minute report about the dangers of yoga. Meanwhile, Brian did not mention the riots in Nigeria over fuel prices because obviously they weren't important enough. But at least we know all about the little girl and the lion. And the dangers of yoga. Great job, Brian! Keep up the good work.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Not-Really-Nightly News
Of the 105 weekend days in 2011, NBC did not air Nightly News on 18 of them (on the east coast, and possibly nationally). So 17% of 2011's weekend days were without an evening newscast on NBC. Obviously football, golf, hockey and horse racing were much more important than the urgent news events happening across the country and around the world. By more important, of course, I mean more profitable. The NBC weasels care so little for their weekend newscast that they're willing to forego it just for the sake of money. Unfortunately, in 2012, NBC will be pre-empting many more than 18 Nightly News broadcasts. An NBC source tells me that in the coming months, NBC will be pre-empting weekend newscasts in order to bring us the U.S. Indoor Tiddlywinks Championships, the National Collegiate Thumb Wrestling Finals, the PBA Underwater Bowling Tour, World Cup Uphill Skiing, the Ironman Backwards Triathlon, Ice Dancing With the Stars, the Sarah Palin Invitational Alaskan Trout Fishing Championships, Beer League Softball, the Kickball World Cup Finals, the Masters Miniature Golf Tournament, Canadian Junior Curling, Beach Hockey, Minor League Newcomb and Penultimate Frisbee. And of course, in a few months, it will be March Madness, so NBC will be airing the sweet sixteen and final four of NCAA Tetherball. I can't help wondering--why does NBC bother with Nightly News at all? If money is so important to the NBC suits, why don't they just cancel Nightly News altogether and air a more profitable show in its place? How about Celebrity Horseshoes?
Meanwhile, Monday's Nightly News included reruns of four stories that had already aired on Sunday's broadcast:
***On Monday, Brian Williams spent 1:45 talking with David Gregory about Sunday's Republican Presidential debate that took place on "Meet the Press". But on Sunday, Lester Holt already had a 1:35 discussion with David Gregory about the debate. By the way, Nightly News did not show any clips from Saturday's ABC debate; in fact they barely acknowledged it. Lester and Brian each made a single passing reference to Saturday's debate, without ever mentioning ABC. By contrast, on Sunday's ABC World News, anchor David Muir made multiple references to the NBC debate and even showed clips from it. I think it's obvious which network is interested in news, and which network is only interested in rabid self-promotion and childish behavior like, "If I ignore ABC, then they don't exist".
***Monday's two-minute story about Gabby Giffords' public appearance Sunday (to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of her shooting) was virtually identical to Sunday night's story. Monday's story used most of the same footage that had been shown Sunday; the only real difference was that Miguel Almaguer recorded a different voice-over for Monday's story in a silly attempt to make the stories seem different.
***Sunday's Nightly News featured a 30-second story about the Australian bungee jumper who plunged into an African river when her bungee cord snapped. Monday's Nightly News...featured a 25-second story about the Australian bungee jumper who plunged into an African river when her bungee cord snapped. Wow--it must have been really hard to trim those five seconds off of Sunday's story.
***Sunday's broadcast included a 20-second obituary for Tony Blankley. Monday's broadcast included a 40-second obituary for Tony Blankley. Was Blankley really so important that he merited obits on two consecutive broadcasts? But there was one important difference in the two obituaries. Sunday's obit showed the years "1948-2012" on-screen below Blankley's photo. Monday's obit showed the years "1949-2012" on-screen below Blankley's photo. It's laughable that the Nightly News producers could give Blankley two different years of birth on two different days. But that's how things are at Nightly News. No one cares.
Luckily, not every story on Monday's broadcast was a rerun from Sunday. We were treated to a marvelous story about how Kate Middleton celebrated her 30th birthday. She went to see "War Horse"! She cried! OMG! By the way, this is only the 22nd Kate Middleton story Nightly News has run in the past seven months, so we're not even close to the saturation point. I'm surprised that Brian didn't lead with this story, considering his obsession with all things Kate. Then we saw some mesmerizing footage of George Romney from 1967. I'm not sure why this is relevant, other than to allow Brian to plug a longer version of the Romney story that would be airing later on "Rock Center". Is it really ethical for Brian to take more than a minute from Nightly News to plug his prime-time show? Oh well, what do I know. Ethics doesn't matter; plugging "Rock Center" matters. Next, Brian spent 30 seconds telling us about recalls of Bufferin and Excedrin. I'm sure Brian's decision to report this story had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that these brands compete directly with Bayer. Absolutely nothing. (With its pain-relief products like Bayer aspirin, Alka-Seltzer and Aleve, Bayer is by far the most frequent advertiser on Nightly News. So bad news for Excedrin and Bufferin is very helpful to Bayer.) And the final story of the night was a 2:45 piece about the popularity of the PBS series "Downton Abbey". Wow, 2:45--that's really long. They could have aired two actual news stories in that time. But I'll say this--at least Stephanie Gosk had the ethical courtesy to disclose that "Downton Abbey" is produced by a company owned by NBC Universal. So while the piece was shown for the sole purpose of promoting an NBC property, at least Gosk told us the truth. I'm not sure how Brian allowed that disclosure into the story--I'm guessing he wasn't aware of it until it actually aired.
Meanwhile, on Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met in Berlin to discuss ways to salvage the economic future of Europe. Brian didn't report this story because obviously it wasn't important enough. But at least we know all about Kate's 30th birthday and "Downton Abbey". Great job, Brian. Keep up the good work.
Meanwhile, Monday's Nightly News included reruns of four stories that had already aired on Sunday's broadcast:
***On Monday, Brian Williams spent 1:45 talking with David Gregory about Sunday's Republican Presidential debate that took place on "Meet the Press". But on Sunday, Lester Holt already had a 1:35 discussion with David Gregory about the debate. By the way, Nightly News did not show any clips from Saturday's ABC debate; in fact they barely acknowledged it. Lester and Brian each made a single passing reference to Saturday's debate, without ever mentioning ABC. By contrast, on Sunday's ABC World News, anchor David Muir made multiple references to the NBC debate and even showed clips from it. I think it's obvious which network is interested in news, and which network is only interested in rabid self-promotion and childish behavior like, "If I ignore ABC, then they don't exist".
***Monday's two-minute story about Gabby Giffords' public appearance Sunday (to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of her shooting) was virtually identical to Sunday night's story. Monday's story used most of the same footage that had been shown Sunday; the only real difference was that Miguel Almaguer recorded a different voice-over for Monday's story in a silly attempt to make the stories seem different.
***Sunday's Nightly News featured a 30-second story about the Australian bungee jumper who plunged into an African river when her bungee cord snapped. Monday's Nightly News...featured a 25-second story about the Australian bungee jumper who plunged into an African river when her bungee cord snapped. Wow--it must have been really hard to trim those five seconds off of Sunday's story.
***Sunday's broadcast included a 20-second obituary for Tony Blankley. Monday's broadcast included a 40-second obituary for Tony Blankley. Was Blankley really so important that he merited obits on two consecutive broadcasts? But there was one important difference in the two obituaries. Sunday's obit showed the years "1948-2012" on-screen below Blankley's photo. Monday's obit showed the years "1949-2012" on-screen below Blankley's photo. It's laughable that the Nightly News producers could give Blankley two different years of birth on two different days. But that's how things are at Nightly News. No one cares.
Luckily, not every story on Monday's broadcast was a rerun from Sunday. We were treated to a marvelous story about how Kate Middleton celebrated her 30th birthday. She went to see "War Horse"! She cried! OMG! By the way, this is only the 22nd Kate Middleton story Nightly News has run in the past seven months, so we're not even close to the saturation point. I'm surprised that Brian didn't lead with this story, considering his obsession with all things Kate. Then we saw some mesmerizing footage of George Romney from 1967. I'm not sure why this is relevant, other than to allow Brian to plug a longer version of the Romney story that would be airing later on "Rock Center". Is it really ethical for Brian to take more than a minute from Nightly News to plug his prime-time show? Oh well, what do I know. Ethics doesn't matter; plugging "Rock Center" matters. Next, Brian spent 30 seconds telling us about recalls of Bufferin and Excedrin. I'm sure Brian's decision to report this story had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that these brands compete directly with Bayer. Absolutely nothing. (With its pain-relief products like Bayer aspirin, Alka-Seltzer and Aleve, Bayer is by far the most frequent advertiser on Nightly News. So bad news for Excedrin and Bufferin is very helpful to Bayer.) And the final story of the night was a 2:45 piece about the popularity of the PBS series "Downton Abbey". Wow, 2:45--that's really long. They could have aired two actual news stories in that time. But I'll say this--at least Stephanie Gosk had the ethical courtesy to disclose that "Downton Abbey" is produced by a company owned by NBC Universal. So while the piece was shown for the sole purpose of promoting an NBC property, at least Gosk told us the truth. I'm not sure how Brian allowed that disclosure into the story--I'm guessing he wasn't aware of it until it actually aired.
Meanwhile, on Monday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met in Berlin to discuss ways to salvage the economic future of Europe. Brian didn't report this story because obviously it wasn't important enough. But at least we know all about Kate's 30th birthday and "Downton Abbey". Great job, Brian. Keep up the good work.
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