Live From Mexico, Jesus Again, Market Troubles, Whale Attack, PTSD In Iraqi Kids, Disappeared Iranian, And More Fire Coverage (Tuesday's Second Hour)
Hi everyone. Today I'd like to express my annoyance with cable news viewers. I happened to come across the ratings from Tuesday night and how did 360's very good show fare? Sucko. Greta totally kicked their ass. Why? Well she had coverage of Anna Nicole's baby daddy of course. 360 on the other hand didn't touch the story (a thousand thank yous for that BTW) and they get creamed. This is not the way things are suppose to work. You do a good show, you should be rewarded with positive ratings. It's positive reinforcement. It's a whole psychological theory, which is not supposed to be wrong. Man, B.F. Skinner obviously never imagined the cable news wars. So anyway, this makes it very difficult for me to get on 360 when they cover crap. You're killng me here, people. I know, if you're reading this blog you're probably not one of one's I need to be talking to, but I'm sure you know one of these people. Give them a little smack for me, okay? The Anna Nicole circus must stop. Sigh. Keep trucking, 360.
The hour kicks off with Ed Henry live from Mexico because he's traveling with the president. He tells us that this whole Gonzales scandal forced Counselor Dan Bartlett to pause his Latin adventure to tell everyone that Bush has full confidence in Gonzales. Is this the same kind of confidence he had in Harriet Meirs and Donald Rumsfeld? Because if so Alberto might want to start packing those bags. Ed says that the democrats are hoping to get Karl Rove to testify and if they have to they'll hand out subpoenas. Ooh. I'll bring the popcorn.
Next up we have a Soledad O'Brien piece, also set in Mexico. She's not traveling with Bush, she just wanted to get away from Miles. Aw, I kid Miles. Anyway, Soledad has found that Mexico is getting kind of empty. Why? They're all here! Maybe we should all just move there. Hey, warmer winters. What's happening is that people are coming to the US for jobs and then sending the money back to their villages, but at the same time these villages are becoming decimated because they're so empty now. In one village the grocery store had to close because there were no customers and a factory shut down because it was no longer needed. That's sad. After her piece Soledad joins us and states that President Calderon needs to close the wage disparity. Anderson wonders if Mexicans are optimistic about what Bush is saying while there. Soledad tells us they don't really care what he says. Hey, something they have in common with the Americans. However, Mexicans in the US are listening to Bush. So...immigration coverage that is practical and focuses on the real problem? You guys are rocking my world.
Transitioning now to...Jesus again. I guess the ratings were good when they covered it before. I honestly don't get it. So anyway, we're joined by Stephen Pfann, a scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem and shocker, he's thinks there are more women in the tomb than just Mary Magdalene. In fact, there might be 80 people in there. Okay, I would not want to share eternity with 79 other people. So once again, this is all crap, but apparently 4 million people watched the documentary. Sheesh. Next we've got some BREAKING NEWS. It seems the Asian markets are down and Ali Velshi is on the phone to explain...and then he's not on the phone. Oh, we lost Ali. You know he's all ticked because he was probably in bed or going to bed. After commercial we get Ali back and he explains that there is a crisis in sub prime mortgages. Oh noes! Yeah, I have no idea what that means. You want me to talk about the war or political scandal I'm your girl. But this stuff? Sorry. My business education went as far as the introductory course.
Moving on to a Tom Foreman piece about that whale attack that we saw in last hour's The Shot. Apparently a 30 foot sperm whale strayed into a cove and the fishermen thought they could rope it and drag it back out to sea. It was a nice gesture, but the whale didn't like it so much and totally flipped their boat. Now one guy is dead. To discuss this we've got Animal Planet's Jeff Corwin. Yay. After all the Brazil coverage I was having Jeff withdrawl. Anderson asks if it's common for the whales to be aggressive like that. Jeff says no, but they will defend themselves. He also tells us that the whales easily weigh 60 tons and he speculates this particular whale might have been sick because he's never seen anything like this before. There's also some talk about why the sperm whales are still endangered. Anderson Cooper, I can't believe you didn't ask him whether or not he still has his arm marks. And no frog jokes, Jeff? Aw, I thought you guys were like total BFF's since your Amazon bonding. Hee.
Transitioning now to a Jennifer Eccleston (who?) piece on the toll the Iraq war is having on Iraqi children. As you might imagine, most of the kids are at least somewhat traumatized and they deal in ways such as acting out or playing games like "kill the insurgents." Learned that one from us. Unfortunately Iraq is in no shape to even deal with physical problems much less psychological ones. Haidar Abdul Mosen runs the only psychiatric clinic in Iraq and sees up to 15 people a day, but obviously it's not enough. After the piece we've got taped Sanjay Gupta for discussion. He tells us that violent behavior is becoming the new normal in Iraq and school age children are even exhibiting PTSD. Sanjay also reminds us that Iraq is a very young country, with half the population under 18. Anderson mentions that when he was in Sarajevo kids would play "sniper" and he wonders if these games might be good for them. Sanjay thinks role playing is fine as long as it's done in a safe setting with a trained professional. Then Anderson points out the obvious: there are no safe settings or trained professionals in Iraq. Yeah.
Next up we have a Ben Wedeman piece on this Iranian official that has totally disappeared. Ooh. Intriguing. This guy might have info on the Beirut bombing in the 80's, as well as a bunch of other stuff. The Iranians of course blame the US and Israel and there are denials all around. I would guess that we didn't do it since we're all about incompetence these days, but who knows? Wouldn't it be nice if all of our enemies just quietly disappeared? Okay, creepy, but kind of nice. Finally tonight we have a Jason Carroll piece on that Bronx fire and then a repeat of the Gary Tuchman piece. I'm not sure why we need both, but whatever. And...we're out.
The hour kicks off with Ed Henry live from Mexico because he's traveling with the president. He tells us that this whole Gonzales scandal forced Counselor Dan Bartlett to pause his Latin adventure to tell everyone that Bush has full confidence in Gonzales. Is this the same kind of confidence he had in Harriet Meirs and Donald Rumsfeld? Because if so Alberto might want to start packing those bags. Ed says that the democrats are hoping to get Karl Rove to testify and if they have to they'll hand out subpoenas. Ooh. I'll bring the popcorn.
Next up we have a Soledad O'Brien piece, also set in Mexico. She's not traveling with Bush, she just wanted to get away from Miles. Aw, I kid Miles. Anyway, Soledad has found that Mexico is getting kind of empty. Why? They're all here! Maybe we should all just move there. Hey, warmer winters. What's happening is that people are coming to the US for jobs and then sending the money back to their villages, but at the same time these villages are becoming decimated because they're so empty now. In one village the grocery store had to close because there were no customers and a factory shut down because it was no longer needed. That's sad. After her piece Soledad joins us and states that President Calderon needs to close the wage disparity. Anderson wonders if Mexicans are optimistic about what Bush is saying while there. Soledad tells us they don't really care what he says. Hey, something they have in common with the Americans. However, Mexicans in the US are listening to Bush. So...immigration coverage that is practical and focuses on the real problem? You guys are rocking my world.
Transitioning now to...Jesus again. I guess the ratings were good when they covered it before. I honestly don't get it. So anyway, we're joined by Stephen Pfann, a scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem and shocker, he's thinks there are more women in the tomb than just Mary Magdalene. In fact, there might be 80 people in there. Okay, I would not want to share eternity with 79 other people. So once again, this is all crap, but apparently 4 million people watched the documentary. Sheesh. Next we've got some BREAKING NEWS. It seems the Asian markets are down and Ali Velshi is on the phone to explain...and then he's not on the phone. Oh, we lost Ali. You know he's all ticked because he was probably in bed or going to bed. After commercial we get Ali back and he explains that there is a crisis in sub prime mortgages. Oh noes! Yeah, I have no idea what that means. You want me to talk about the war or political scandal I'm your girl. But this stuff? Sorry. My business education went as far as the introductory course.
Moving on to a Tom Foreman piece about that whale attack that we saw in last hour's The Shot. Apparently a 30 foot sperm whale strayed into a cove and the fishermen thought they could rope it and drag it back out to sea. It was a nice gesture, but the whale didn't like it so much and totally flipped their boat. Now one guy is dead. To discuss this we've got Animal Planet's Jeff Corwin. Yay. After all the Brazil coverage I was having Jeff withdrawl. Anderson asks if it's common for the whales to be aggressive like that. Jeff says no, but they will defend themselves. He also tells us that the whales easily weigh 60 tons and he speculates this particular whale might have been sick because he's never seen anything like this before. There's also some talk about why the sperm whales are still endangered. Anderson Cooper, I can't believe you didn't ask him whether or not he still has his arm marks. And no frog jokes, Jeff? Aw, I thought you guys were like total BFF's since your Amazon bonding. Hee.
Transitioning now to a Jennifer Eccleston (who?) piece on the toll the Iraq war is having on Iraqi children. As you might imagine, most of the kids are at least somewhat traumatized and they deal in ways such as acting out or playing games like "kill the insurgents." Learned that one from us. Unfortunately Iraq is in no shape to even deal with physical problems much less psychological ones. Haidar Abdul Mosen runs the only psychiatric clinic in Iraq and sees up to 15 people a day, but obviously it's not enough. After the piece we've got taped Sanjay Gupta for discussion. He tells us that violent behavior is becoming the new normal in Iraq and school age children are even exhibiting PTSD. Sanjay also reminds us that Iraq is a very young country, with half the population under 18. Anderson mentions that when he was in Sarajevo kids would play "sniper" and he wonders if these games might be good for them. Sanjay thinks role playing is fine as long as it's done in a safe setting with a trained professional. Then Anderson points out the obvious: there are no safe settings or trained professionals in Iraq. Yeah.
Next up we have a Ben Wedeman piece on this Iranian official that has totally disappeared. Ooh. Intriguing. This guy might have info on the Beirut bombing in the 80's, as well as a bunch of other stuff. The Iranians of course blame the US and Israel and there are denials all around. I would guess that we didn't do it since we're all about incompetence these days, but who knows? Wouldn't it be nice if all of our enemies just quietly disappeared? Okay, creepy, but kind of nice. Finally tonight we have a Jason Carroll piece on that Bronx fire and then a repeat of the Gary Tuchman piece. I'm not sure why we need both, but whatever. And...we're out.
posted by eliza at 8:50 PM
3 Comments:
I'll NEVER understand why anyone watches Faux or Greta instead of 360, especially when the quality of the show has been improving lately.
@gray angst-I don't get it either. But I don't get a lot of things about people. People watch Faux because it reinforces their world view and makes them feel good. I don't even consider it a real news network.
Eliza--I am with you. There has been 3 great shows on this week and he has had the worst ratings in along time. Hardly any repeats. I wonder since he was R&K a couple of days, he went on in to work and really had time to do some excellent shows. Just my thoughts. Wonder if people are gone since spring break is on in many of the school systems. I hope that is the only reason. One night in the second hour he only had 75,000. That is awful!
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