Things to do in Sacramento and Beyond: Negative? <i>Here's</i> negative

Things to do in Sacramento and Beyond

The Bee's guide to events, activities, arts and entertainment

December 6, 2007

Negative? Here's negative

OK, so I've been accused by some local TV news folks of being overly negative about the state of their news coverage (even though I recently wrote a glowing "10 Reasons Why Local TV News Doesn't Stink" cover story in The Bee).

But I'm here to tell you that I'm a Pollyanna compared to former TV news veteran Mike James, whose Web site, News Blues, is infamous among TV types.

James recently gave an interview to another blogger, and check out these quotes about TV news:

"TV news, and those who draw paychecks from it, have become lazy, sloppy, and too willing to trust consultants rather than their own instincts. The industry no longer delivers news. It falls back on formulas. Content has become predictable. It takes the easy way out. It tries to fill an ever-increasing news hole with artificial preservatives.
"Someone needs to clean the kitchen, discard the spoiled meat and rancid vegetables, scour the cupboard, expel the vermin, hose down the joint, and chug a big jolt of reality. TV news has lost its way. Forget the excuses. No one cares that your bosses are asking you to fill more time with fewer resources. The business is contaminated. The content is fetid and foul, shallow and pointless. Get a job selling time share. Drive a bus in Reno. Do anything but continue foisting polluted, noxious news feces on the superficial American public.

Television news (if you believe it is a form of journalism) has the ability...the responsibility...to capture and preserve the moments, the events, that pass through our daily lives. Instead, it has fallen back on trivial weepies and frothy feel-goods, on medical "studies" and video news releases, or political spin and opinionated shoutfests, hypothesis, rumor, and supposition. TV news is no longer in charge of itself. It deserves to be shot at sunrise."

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