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by RobertMiller 1559 days ago
Cable news is a waste. Anything worth hearing about will be written up by a newspaper. And with newspapers now having websites, cable news doesn't even have an immediacy advantage. The only thing cable news can do better than newspapers is show you live footage of something happening, but that's good for little but gawking at.

And if you really must get CNN's take on things, https://lite.cnn.com/en is much better than their cable channel. No filler, rambling talking heads, flashy hypnotic animations and music, or commercial breaks.
2 comments
specialist 1559 days ago
> Anything worth hearing about will be written up by a newspaper.

True. Old complaint. TV news has always been a parasite on newspaper news rooms. With some rare exceptions.

I did student broadcasting (radio, public access cable, job shadowing) in the 80s. Learned about the history, the players, "journalism", etc. I loved the gear, working in the studio. (At least as much as I love programming computers.)

Corporate media has always been as bad as everyone imagines. Completely walked away from the industry after some interning. Once I got a peek behind the curtain, I simply loathe the entirety of it. I even refuse to own a TV, watch the news, etc.

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choko 1559 days ago
Local news isn't much better. Most of the outlets are owned by the same people.
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RobertMiller 1559 days ago
Local news at least has one advantage over cable news; it only runs for a few hours a day so they aren't trying to stretch everything out to fill a full 24/7 schedule. But even so it's still crap, I don't watch local TV news either. The only TV news I've ever considered to be worth a damn was News Hour with Jim Lehrer, which was only an hour a day. Even in that case, I might just have rose-tinted glasses on.
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DoctorOW 1559 days ago
It really depends who owns the station. I've seen great work from Nexstar stations. So far, the stories I've seen from their approach to cable news, NewsNation aren't bad. They might get more CNN like as they approach 24 hour coverage.

Edit: I work for a competitor to Nexstar who overall does very good work but I wouldn't recommend to avoid a conflict of interest.

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