Re: CBS covers the news big-time

[Mike Thomas <nostatic@earthlink.net>]

Actually, if this wasn't football season, we may have seen more wall to wall
coverage.  CBS and Fox would have ticked off more viewers by not airing football,
plus I'm sure they are under contractual obligation to air the games, despite the
news circumstances. I still see a lot of helocopter shots with rambling
commentary this morning, and the Today show spent an inordinate amount of time on
it, considering there is still very little known as to the cause of the crash.

Most Rhode Island stations aired the Chaffee funeral, along with C-SPAN.  That
seems appropriate.  Why would CNN air it?  I don't think a viewer on the west
coast would really care too much.

Mike Thomas
WXLO & Mediabase 24/7


Dib9@aol.com wrote:

> I hope you're not serious.  215 people were on the plane, including 129
> Americans.  What I noticed was the coverage was much more restrained than the
> coverage of the JFK Jr. coverage, when only 3 people were killed.  The Sunday
> Taling Head shows covered the plane crash and then moved on to their
> scheduled interviews.  By early afternoon, the broadcast networks were all
> back to regular programming with only the news networks sticking with
> continuing coverage.  This was the appropriate way to handle things unlike
> the overkill with the JFK Jr. crash.  I think the coverage was appropriate
> considering the number of people involved and the fact that the cause of the
> crash is still unknown.
>
> Our celebrity culture won another one this week: the Payne Stewart memorial
> service was carried live on ESPN, CNN and Fox News.  The John Chafee funeral
> was only on CSPAN.  The circumstances of Payne Stewart's death were certainly
> odd and is death is certainly a tragedy for his friends and family but
> something is out of kilter here.
>