Posted on 04/19/2005 1:16:59 PM PDT by Right Wing Assault
Former ABC News reporter/anchor Sam Donaldson is ready to say the last rites for network news because it will soon lose its dominant position as Americans' primary source of news. "I think it's dead. Sorry," he said during a breakfast panel Tuesday at the National Association of Broadcasters' convention in Las Vegas. "The monster anchors are through."
Even though 30 million viewers still turn to networks news each night and garner ratings well above CNN and Fox News, networks news operations long ago lost their role as the sources Americans rely on during time of major breaking news, said Donaldson
"God forbid, if someone shot the President, which network would you turn to? It will be cable, the Internet--something other than General Hospital being interrupted."
Increasingly, viewers will continue turning to alternative sources for everyday news as well, he said.
Donaldson was joined on the panel by CNN political analyst Jeff Greenfield and CBS Sunday Morning's Charles Osgood., both of whom were less pessimistic about network news' future.
"If it's dying, it's dying a very slow death," Greenfield said. Although the network news monopoly was "smashed" by cable, broadcast news will redefine itself, thought he didn't yet know how.
Osgood said the network news can remain competitive with other platforms but must be constantly reevaluated to remain competitive--a fact that makes him glad he's at the tail end of his career rather than the beginning. "It used to be when we wanted to make a show more appealing to more people, the first thing we did was design a new set."
During their talk the three reporters came out in favor of a federal shield law that would allow journalists to protect the identity of their sources without threat of jail.
Donaldson, however, said journalists shouldn't have blanket protection when lives are at stake, but didn't know how to draft a law that would balance the need to ensure that journalists can protect whistle blowers but won't impede legal investigations.
The three also agreed that that Internet bloggers have had a generally positive impact on news because mainstream reporters are forced to better verify their information and pare opinions out of their work or face he wrath of scrutinizing critics.
"I think it's dead. Sorry,"
I'm not. Requiescat in pace.
LOL, RIP was the first phrase that popped into my mind when I read the headline!
It could have been a loser in the 60's as well, I don't know, but in my term of media expertise, it went steadily downhill and UHF comedies were getting larger audiences in the same time slots, reflecting the sorts of people who watched at that hour.
Well, given choices, the people have gone elsewhere.
At least they got that news story right.
I guess this is their way of saying, Our editors have left us without supervision for way toooo long.
Network news might be dead but that thing on Sam's head sure isn't.
It was on the actual network. I believe the History Channel ran an extra special later that evening. That was an excellent Jennings special.
Jennings produces a show which attempted to use a computer simulation to conclusively prove what the Warren Commission Report said happened 40 years prior. It was a attempt to once again whitewash The Warren Commission single bullet theory and the greatest examples of computerized journalism GIGO I've ever seen.
"But why did that have to be on the History Channel? Why can't the networks have the nuts to do something like that??"
There was a day when that might have happened.
However, today, the networks are fighting mightily
only for young adults and teenagers.
Their nuts only extend to those folks, most of whom
consider anyone interested in 1963 as un-cool.
The networks present few entertainment and information options: to go beyond fart and belch jokes, breast jokes, cockroach milkshakes, butt-shows, vomit jokes, true crime and kidnapping shows is something the networks don't have the courage to do.
Even Bill "Tinfoil Hats and shrill rants" Moyers has to stay on PBS.
No kidding. If Sam et.al. want blanket immunity then they can join the priesthood.
LOL!
In my first reading the headline, I thought Donaldson had died.
amen.
liberals puked all over americans during the vietnam war, and since.
good riddance.
Maybe if they had reported news instead of their liberal point of view the competition would have been relegated to obscurity.
Bingo, you have it correct. But don't tell the MSM, they will never figure it out before they go belly up. All I want are the ture facts - I can make up my own mind. Thank God for the internet.
The day the democrat party press release agencies, oops I meant network news, actually is annihilated will be a day of great joy.
I see Peter, Dan, and Walter Cronkite!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.