Last night, during President Bush’s news conference, three networks decided to cut away from that and resume their normal programming. NBC went to “The Apprentice” with Donald Trump, CBS went to “Survivor,” and Fox to Paris Hilton’s “The Simple Life.”
I would like to see this disrespect answered in a suitable fashion. Two ideas occur to me:
1) At the next news conference, after half an hour has passed, Bush should ask the reporters from NBC, CBS, and Fox to leave.
2) A White House official should be in charge of monitoring which networks cut away from the next one. As soon as that happens, their reporters should be removed from the conference.
After all, the networks have already shown how much interest they have in such events. If they don’t feel like broadcasting them, then they shouldn’t receive the benefit of having their reporters participating.
Yeah, it could be considered petty and spiteful. But I’m too tired and irritated to care.
I emailed the networks and called the local affiliates, but I like your ideas much better.
At the very least, let those networks’ reporters attend the next news conference, just don’t call on any of them.
They didn’t do this to Clinton and they wouldn’t have done it to Gore or Kerry had either of them – Heaven forbid – become president.
Actually, I think it would be better if the networks that cut away miss the first part of the president’s next news conference. Keep their reporters and cameras out of the room until the same amount of time that they previously covered before cutting away has passed.
So what exactly did they do when they cut away? Did they just interupt the president in mid-sentence or what?
This alphabet (CBS,NBC,ABC) networks’ attitude is exactly why their ratings are going in the toilet and they’re dying on the vine. Soon, cable and alternate media entertainment and news will prevail. Damsel (my lovely wife) and I regularly dismiss the crap the big three spew.
Oh the humanity! (of the death of the big three . . .)
I think we aren’t far from the days when a presidential speech won’t be covered on the networks at all. A presidential speech doesn’t make the networks any money, and in this case the dollar is talking.
…in this case the dollar is talking.
If so, it’s doing a damn good impression of two bits.
networks are declining. Smaller entities have never covered this stuff. This is how the world is moving. Deal with it.
Actually, yes, the dollars were talking, because CBS, ABC and NBC cutaway from him which they have not funded. As in, their statement was so tacky as to be, um, tackier than usual tacky.
“The big three,” ahem, it’s like alluding to the three big lumps among the grossest sulfurous orbs: Smelly, Stinky and Ossiferous. I mean, why not.
I’m all for commerce but the media has just run into nuttier land lately…I could go on but why since they aren’t listening to potential viewers/readers, and I now doubt never were.
So, so what, so long. I’m still puzzling over Blogger’s refusal to avail users of that Red Nav. Bar, long ago suggested, never offered, and the search engine results (google, yahoo, msm).
minnie’s (^^) chunky monkey reappears.
1. Bush scheduled his speech for Thursday night, primetime, on the first night of sweeps. So he’s already starting off by giving a big f— you to the networks. Especially since…
2. He had nothing new or important to say. (Although I suppose Bush even taking questions at all is a major new story.)
3. Bush himself hurried it up at the end so he would try to finish before he bled into the networks’ time. But he ran over (see #1) and the networks didn’t feel it was worth losing millions (see #2). Bush didn’t have a problem with it, so why should you?
I didn’t watch the news conference (no television) or listen to it on radio (frankly, things like this bore the crap out of me). But I do have one question: why didn’t the networks delay the start of their primetime lineups and then show them in their entirety afterwards? CBS, at least, has no problem doing that on Sundays during football season.
I definitely agree with you Jay. I was bad, too, I did not watch it – slap, slap, slap, and watched channel 50. That’s normally what I would not do. I would watch and live blog it but was not feeling up to snuff last night, but I at least, should have watched it. When I saw it wasn’t carried on the major stations,I was a bit surprised. What he has to say is a lot more important than the tv shows we missed.ALL channels should carry the president’s word but you know something? they don’t have to. That’s the whole point, they don’t have to but you would think that a news channel would and do so without question.
I definitely agree.
Cindy
Whoa, be sure of the facts when you criticize, S, Bob — ABC, however evil and anti-Republican they may be, did *not* cut away; neither did PBS, for that matter. FOX did, but you’re not criticizing them…. Is it fine to cut away because your cable station leans Republican? And it doesn’t matter if you don’t because everyone knows you wanted to anyhow?
I regret having to side with Brian on this one, but he is correct – bad timing on the White House’s part. For myself, I was happy to miss “regular” programming to listen to the President. I was surprised when Fox cut away, but was happy to see ABC stayed with it. So, I watched the end of the news conference on ABC. I got the feeling the White House told the networks to plan for a one hour news conference. It seemed to me that there were specific issues the White House was hoping to cover in that hour. Although the President presented himself well I feel he rambled a bit at times and, hence, things ran a little bit longer than expected. In fact, I think I heard the President make a crack near the end of the conference about the need to soon get back to regular programming. So, I think he was aware of mutually agreed to time limitations. All that being said, when I meet anyone who was offended by the news conference interfering with “their” Thursday night in front of the tube, I dismiss them as anyone who I should take seriously in a political discussion.
Adrianne…it’s hyperbole, written earlier, as in, to make a point: liberal media has no affiliation with the current administration and with probably around sixty-five percent of the Ameican voting public.
Who Bush does have an affiliation with.
I realize the statistical beat reality of FOX’s varied signal because I was watching FOX ‘Live’ during the whole several hours involved, and also reply later.
I do criticize FOX (how can you presume to know that I “don’t”) when/if their behavior shows the sort of disconnect from political reality; however, FOX rarely makes that disconnect, so there’s not nearly reasons to criticise them. If they ever behaved programmatically as does CNN, CBS, et al., of course they’d be criticised. Since the don’t, they aren’t (generally). Also, I’d stop watching FOX if they ever began approaching the behaviors that CBS/et al. practice.
So, actually, the question is moot…since FOX isn’t parallel, not even related, in behaviors to the other networks, there’s not too much sense in speculating about who would do what and why if they ‘ever’ or possibly ‘could be’ or whatever. It’s just not an efficient issue, nearly impossible to speculate about as to possible range of ‘possibles.’
You make the often-liberal-error of positing that you assume all Republicans excuse all things if and when someone is a Republican also. Which could not be farther from reality than, well, CBS.
FOX contains conservative persons but it also contains/includes a huge array of Democrats speaking about everything. In fact, I hear more Democrat Senators and Congresspeople on FOX than appear on other stations, and, FOX provides a lot of weekly hours to people like Colmes on Hannity and Colmes, and he’s quite the liberal (and that’s just one guy among many others).
In fact, almost all the liberal and Democrat quotes and statements I hear and use for additional information, I hear on FOX. So, there goes your theory.
Since I couldn’t sit through the live speech, however, in full, but left for a while then returned, I saw the first portion of Bush’s speech “live” then the rerun of the first through to finish about an hour later. So, I can’t know what FOX did at that time since I was doing something else away from a television broadcast.
I pointed out earlier that the other networks — all reported to have tuned away from the President’s conference — do so normally out of party politics and often don’t even cover his appearances “live” at all, or much, while FOX does. But FOX ALSO covers a lot of other content that the other networks don’t, so again, there’s no comparison between the three and with FOX. FOX provides an array of content and their broadcast behaviors are entirely different in format and editorial tone than the others. No comparison.
So, actually, it is you who is not fully informed but then whenever liberals criticize any of us conservatives on Wizbang, you always do so by alleging false characteristics and then trying to take us to task for something that isn’t actual in the first place. Which leads me back to reality and that I have things to do at this hour…
Gee Mr S,you obviously attended Bill O’Reilly’s school of spin and repeat till it sounds true.
Your own words: “CBS, ABC and NBC cutaway from him which they have not funded. As in, their statement was so tacky as to be, um, tackier than usual tacky.”
So who’s “alleging false characteristics and then trying to take us to task for something that isn’t actual in the first place?”
LOL
I can’t decide whether I get more annoyed when they cut away from a major sporting event that runs over time, or regular programming for news when I really wanted to see that rerun of Gilligan’s Island instead. I mean, like, do most of us really care about the future of the social security system? Unless perhaps someone flies a passenger 737 into it? Then you can play that clip over and over again for weeks!
[for all the trolls out there, the above is sarcasm]
‘Course I don’t watch sports or reruns. Or much TV for that matter. The whole thing was on radio and uninterupted. And we’re talking about as left-wing-as-you-can-get California Public Radio stations (both the ones I get here from Sacramento and SF). The analysis aftewards was predictable and boring, so I cut away and back to reality.
So, yeah, I like JT’s suggestions.
“FOX did, but you’re not criticizing them…. Is it fine to cut away because your cable station leans Republican?”
Uh, duh! Hello! Read what Jay posted again:
Last night, during President Bush’s news conference, three networks decided to cut away from that and resume their normal programming. NBC went to “The Apprentice” with Donald Trump, CBS went to “Survivor,” and Fox to Paris Hilton’s “The Simple Life.”
At the next news conference, after half an hour has passed, Bush should ask the reporters from NBC, CBS, and Fox to leave.
As you can see, Jay did indeed criticize FOX for cutting away.
Please take off your blinders.
I must need new glasses or something. efb’s post made absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
What’s so irritating is how they always bring up how President Bush has only had a handful of prime time press conferences, like he is scared of the media or something. Then, when he has one, they threaten not to show it, making the White House moves it to a half hour earlier. Then the reporters ask retarded questions and the networks don’t even show the whole thing.
Jinx, as I mentioned (and by name), I was criticizing S and Bob for their factual inaccuracies of saying ABC cut away. I’ve got no problems with what Jay said. No blinders, sorry. In return: please read an entire comment before misinterpreting it.
As for S… My, I suppose I must never have corrected anyone before on this site… didn’t know that doing so suddenly makes one a liberal.
Fatman: you may have made the same mistake as Jinx. See, S said, as efb quoted, that ABC cut away. Thing is, ABC didn’t. I, in a post addressed to S (and Bob), took issue with that comment of S’s, because automatic yet counterfactual assumptions help no one. S then accused me of being a liberal and making things up; efb simply quoted S’s own words in my defense, for which kindness I am grateful. Sorry if that was confusing!
it must have been local affiliates of fox that broke away. if it was them all, then why did brit hume make the point that fox had stayed with the president? and that he took pride in the fact?
Fox TV cut away but Fox News did not.
By the way, ABC, NBC and CBS are always
whining that Bush has few, if any, press
conferences. When he does finally have
one, they don’t even fully cover it.
Adrianne:
I knew (from reading Jay Tea and others) that ABC didn’t cut away. I just couldn’t make any sense of efb’s post until I went back and re-read it and -s-‘s. Then it made some sense.
Like I said, new glasses… or something.
Adrienne Truett:
You’re taking things far too personally. That you’d misperceive comments of mine as ‘accusing you’ of anything, is a problem. Yours.
What I can’t figure out is why you need to suggest some personally derogatory thing as you have.
Obviously, we have different opinions about (other thread, I am suspecting) “gay adoptions” and such and you’re now out of whack about anything I write because of that.
Get some perspective. If my lone opinions on a public site so easily set you off into self obsession (the “it’s about me, isn’t it” line of attack), there’s little point in future commenting.
Now that I think about it, thanks, I’ll keep scrolling in the future. However, I have opinions as do many Americans that differ considerably from yours and if you assume that means you can then start personaly attack language, you’re mistaken. It does nothing to further your causes, much less your opinions, nor change those of others. In fact, your behavior tends to polarize others to reject much of what you want others to accept.
efb:
I must’a missed something that pricks your intolerance about what I watch on television and don’t…FOX cutaway (supposedly, as you write), the other three networks definitely did as I read later (I didn’t watch them), you suggest that I’d not criticise FOX if they weren’t “Republican,” I write that that’s not a related issue and more, you laugh…you ridicule…
Excuse me, but could you possibly be more nonsensical? Or insensitive? If you don’t like FOX (or Republicans, for that matter), then don’t watch FOX and vote as a Democrat.
At this point, I haven’t a clue as to whatever it is that is bothering you. As with other bothereds here, I’d be curious to know what it is, however. Tell us what is driving you to extremes about FOX and how you are of the opinion that Republicans never criticize Republicans and why you assume that FOX is “Republican” because they do or do not cutaway from a Presidential conference, or did or did not.
At the risk of drawing your wrath -s-, are you sure that ABC cut away from the press conference? Jay’s original blog stated that three networks cut away from it and it didn’t mention ABC as one of them.
Now frankly, I don’t care. All these things are is another chapter of the msm trying to nail a conservative and him/her trying not to get nailed. If you offered to buy me a television and pay me to watch them I wouldn’t. But I am slightly anal retentive on the subject of accuracy.
Chill – this is just the latest indication that the networks are not serious news organizations – they haven’t been in a long time, but after Rathergate, they don’t even want to pretend.