I'M BREAKING UP WITH DIANE
I’m sorry, Diane, but I’m breaking up.
I’m not going to see you anymore.
I’ve changed the channel.
Beginning tonight, the DVR is going to record the NBC network news, not the ABC network news.
I tried. I really tried.
But you’re not Charlie Gibson, and your newscast isn’t news, and I’m done with you.
I hope that Brian Williams and his crew are better. My hopes aren’t high, but I’m willing to give him another chance.
I love the news. Or at least what used to be the news. I love being able to sit down and learn, to be caught up on what’s happening in the world. I like having things to think about, and knowledge to mull over.
Since boyhood I have watched the news. I remember 40 years of anchors and reporters, from black-and-white to 24-hour. I have watched, learned and been grateful.
But not lately.
And Diane Sawyer and the rejiggered ABC World News are glaring examples. Newscasts have stopped being about the news, reporting has been replaced with emoting, accuracy and intelligence are out the window, and stupid people have taken over.
Stupid people in tight shirts who just did some quick curls to buff up the biceps.
I’ve just spent too many nights with the remote in my hand watching breathless idiots mangling the language and butchering the story. I don’t need any more wannabe models in the Gulf acting like actors.
I am not exaggerating when I say that the average local TV reporter in my town is a smarter person and a better broadcaster than the average network TV reporter on the ABC news. It is astounding that people with such shallow roots could rise to far.
It used to be that TV news attracted people who like news. Now it attracts people who like TV. That applies to both the audience and the “reporters.”
Seriously, half the reporters on network television are vacuous morons who you know would drop the whole thing for a shot at a reality show.
They are drawn to TV by vanity, and being a reporter is a way to get on TV. Unfortunately they end up not being good at either – TV or news.
On ABC, for example, other than Jake Tapper and Dan Harris, each nightly newscast is a parade of mental defectives. You have to think that Tapper and Harris – who actually seem to be intelligent people and real journalists – are embarrassed by the rest of the newscast.
Diane Sawyer herself may have been great in her day, in another universe, but that universe is not the soft-focus niche they’ve made for her at World News. She is absolutely terrible. They should have left her at Good Morning America and made George Stephanopoulos the nightly news anchor.
He was what kept me at ABC.
I know Stephanopoulos started as a Bill Clinton protégé, that he came into prominence as a Democratic operative, but since coming into the news business I honestly think he has been the most objective, intelligent and honest person on the air. As an almost nightly feature, he gave credibility to the newscast.
But the geniuses at ABC have decided he’s needed in the mornings doing recipes with B-list celebrities.
They also dumped Dr. Tim Johnson as the medical reporter. They replaced him with a pretty boy idiot who was hopefully a far better doctor than he is a reporter. Granted, Johnson is an old-line liberal and it showed, but at least he was intelligent and articulate.
So they’ve demoted Johnson, exported Stephanopoulos, marginalized Harris, and given us the Boy Toys of the Gulf. So I’m done. I’ll miss Jake Tapper, and maybe I’ll still tune in on Sunday when Dan Harris anchors.
But, I’m sorry, Diane, we’re breaking up.
I used to watch Brian Williams, after Tom Brokaw retired, but when he started wearing cuff links he forgot his old volunteer-fireman ways and got a little snooty for my tastes. I finally hopped over to ABC a few months after Katrina when NBC’s ad nauseum coverage of that got to be too much to take.
I’m hoping I can be comfortable at NBC.
No disrespect to Katie Couric, who I have a crush on, but she and that newscast have always been a wreck.
So all my eggs are in the NBC basket.
And for the first time in my life, I’m beginning to fear that the nightly news won’t be there for me to watch. They have reformed it so much they’ve essentially killed it.
What they call news today, yesterday they would have called a joke. We have more news outlets doing less actual news than we’ve ever had.
CNN and Fox News Channel are sometimes entertaining and thought provoking, but no honest person could honestly claim that either one of them is engaged in journalism.
Many complain that the news is too liberal. I’m not bothered by that. It’s always been liberal. Most of us can see through that.
What I can’t endure, though, is stupid.
I turn on the evening news to be informed, and it’s pretty hard for stupid people to inform you. They can’t give you information if they know less than you do.
And increasingly, most Americans have a better understanding of the world and its affairs than the network TV people who report on it.
So I’m breaking up with Diane.
And hoping that Brian can win my heart.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2010
