Requiem for Al Jazeera America
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Outsource American TV News
American-made TV news is a dinosaur destined for extinction, a gas-guzzler headed for the museum. America just can’t do TV news anymore. It’s become too big not to fail, like Brian Williams or a ’72 Chevy Impala.
Meanwhile foreign news companies like the Arab-owned Al Jazeera or the Israeli-owned FOX News are outproducing and outperforming all our domestic news networks.
Problems:
– CNN and MSNBC can only cover one story at a time. Baltimore riots, Bruce Jenner, Charleston killings, Confederate flag removals—these are the only things that happened in June and July 2015. Nothing else was worth covering.
– American TV news retains and promotes the wrong people (Matt Lauer, George Stephanopolous, Brian Williams) and releases the good ones. We hit ’em and leave ’em and Al Jazeera pulls up quick to retrieve ’em.
– American news is too close to its sources and its sponsors. Its sources are law enforcement, the military, and politicians. Its sponsors are the pharmaceutical industry, the Koch brothers, and “wealth management” firms. If you can’t afford to alienate any of these people you have no business reporting the news.
– The rest of the world barely exists in American TV news. Five Americans dying from terrorism warrants five days of constant “coverage.” Fifty foreigners in Goddamnastan dying from terrorism barely elicits a five-second mention in between celebrity diet stories.
– America’s “24/7 news cycle” is really only 18 hours long on weekdays. On weekends MSNBC goes to jail, CNN goes to restaurants with Anthony Bourdain, FOX reminisces about the good old wars, and CNN Headline News shows internet clips and re-runs of re-runs of Forensic Files. Foreigners, however, don’t have the luxury of assuming that the whole world runs on Eastern Standard Time. They’re always on their toes.
– American news manipulators mistakenly believe their own focus groups:
“We Americans don’t want to hear about how bad things are in America.”
Yes we do! We love this fuckin’ country!
“We don’t want to hear about the latest coups and riots in the tiny nation of Upper Baboonasshole.”
In fact, I would have liked to have seen a TV reality show centered around the Buck Naked Brigade.
“We want news stories that highlight the dominant social themes of the day.”
Yeah, as you see them, allowing you to pick and choose the social themes of the day and suppress the ones disfavored by your Sources and Sponsors.
Solutions:
– None—if CNN and the other American networks tried to learn from Al Jazeera it would be like Ford Motors trying to build the Pinto. There’s no hope. You can’t fix a cracked colossus.
Walter Cronkite’s Secret Love Childs Have Taken Over the American News Media!
Walter Cronkite’s numerous sexual conquests have resulted in some of America’s brightest news stars
Morning Joe Jumps the Shark — Chris Cuomo New King of Morning TV
Morning Joe attempting to do what even the Fonz couldn’t get away with
Now that Mika Brzezinski is apparently no longer in danger of having a neurotic breakdown on live TV, and now that Joe Scarborough is more concerned about a future run for political office than speaking uncomfortable truths to his fellow Republicans (example: his refusal to admit that Sarah Palin is an annoying idiot or that the obese bully Chris Christie is politically dead and rightly so), their formerly amusing TV show has become a sad wasteland of empty political clichés and sycophantic ass-kisses to VIP’s they dare not discomfit.
Their latest epic fail, the one that put them on water skis in leather jackets and sent them airborne over a pool of sharks happened today, when they brought in a troupe of kids from a New York City charter school to play chess and do math problems in the background. Ugghh!
Let me guess, that was Mika’s idea, right?
No, it’s not cute. No, it’s not endearing. And no, it’s not informative or entertaining.
Look, I agree with many of Mika’s political views, so take my advice: go back to the old days when she was repressed, ignored, and overruled. It may not have been fair, it may have even been sexist and cruel, but at least it was funny. Victimhood better suits her humorless personality anyway.
Of course, as a capitalist, Joe believes in competition, and now I also believe in Joe’s competition—Chris Cuomo of CNN’s New Day. His Guido-bulldog personality is just what the “wimpy” liberal democrats have needed for generations.
CNN New Day’s Chris Cuomo, liberal bulldog
I’m Against Violence So Why Do I Want To Beat The Crap Out Of —
• Neill Clark Warren, founder of E-Harmony, and, sorry to admit, his granddaughter:
Theory: Neill Clark Warren exudes that bland, smarmy, fake goodness of a Mormon or Christian pastor, especially when he talks to his granddaughter.
Why do I want to beat up his granddaughter? I don’t know, I guess I’m just evil. Or maybe she crosses the line between genuinely cute, and overdone, sickeningly fake cute.
• Beth and Michelle from The Paper Cottage (TV ad for Chase):
“Hi, I’m Beth.”
“And I’m Michelle.”
“And we run The Paper Cottage.”
Theory: The Paper Cottage does not seem like a real business. I mean, I’m sure it exists, but it doesn’t seem like a business that could support a family (or two families) all by itself. In other words, it’s really just a hobby for two women whose kids have grown up and left and whose spouses want them out of the house so they can look at some good internet porn.
• Karen and Jeremiah from the Ameritrade ad:
“This is Karen and Jeremiah. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to fall in love, get married, have a couple of kids, move to the country, and live a long happy life together where they almost never fight about money…”
Theory: Their whole life is a cliché that can be summarized by a demographer or even a computer. And that’s appealing to people! People want that! No one really wants to be unique—God no, it’s too lonely…errgghh!
Television Begins its Campaign Against the Internet
(redundant text for google)
From Television to its Long-Lost Viewers: Come back, hither, away from that fucking internet!
Barbara Eden for TV: “See you can’t get this kind of shit on the internet, and even if you could, it wouldn’t make sense without a lot of TV!”
Old fashioned bitch-slap scene: “Get your ass back in front of the TV” (spoken by the Powers that be)
Barbara Eden (as the American public): “I can’t take the ads and the lack of actual sex anymore!”
America, we’ve heard your input so we’re bringing back bitch-slaps to television!
(c)2012, Alan Brech
Perverted Wisdom 