Monday, August 29, 2005

Woo Whee! TV!

International TV news today is really the model of capitalism 150%. Hurricane Katrina seems to have whipped up a storm in the newsroom as well, I have never seen CNN go the way it has, and of that I’ve noticed, these come out prominent:

The action movie outlook: A reporter and his cameraman running around through the storm, the latter saying something like “I’m going to try and reach that mailbox to see what else there is on the street. Eric, give me a yell if you see anything heading my way.”

The personal touch: Reporter to anchorman going something of “Bob, you and I have been through many storms together and you remember what Melbourne was like.”

Perhaps I’m being a little cynical, but it’s a little reminder that news is indeed a commodity, and a business. Attract attention, attack attention, bring on the commercials, baby, yeah. With this trend, I suppose it’s only a matter of time that we get something like this:

“Bob, I’m here in Hurricane Kickass, and I’m gonna try and summersault over that steamroller that you see is crashing down the 5-foot waves – Eric, gimme a yell if you think my surfboard isn’t going to make it. Bob, you remember when we were together with Hurricane Gotcha and when Aunt Helga’s rootin’ tootin’ raspberry pie didn’t sit too well when we went out in the storm, and it’s just like that today, maybe the double helping of unagi was a mistake.”


:P

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