American news media used to be intellectual and responsib
Today news is entertainment where a former cheerleader and chirpy morning show host now reads the news from a teleprompter on the CBS Evening News.
The most pernicious decline in the American news media newsroom, however, is that of MSNBC — the misbegotten stepchild news effort between Microsoft’s MSN web portal (MSN) and NBC (“N”BC) — and the first mistake on the long tumble downward into the chum was to charge Dan Abrams with saving the network:
MSNBC, the also-ran in cable news after 11 years, has tapped its on-air legal-affairs anchor, Dan Abrams, to run the network that averages just 242,000 viewers a day — less than many big-city newscasts. The move was a surprise: Abrams has little management experience, and TV news anchors rarely join executive ranks.
There’s a reason why TV news anchors “rarely join executive ranks” as you will soon discover in the rank news presentation of MSNBC. Let me go on the record to say I love Don Imus on MSNBC in the morning and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC at night. I mourn the loss of the Olbermann show rerun at 9:00am each morning and it stopped rerunning right after Dan Abrams took over the blue pencil of news management.
I completely despise Tucker Carlson for his interruptive, smarmy, pseudo-intellectual style. I cannot bear Rita Cosby’s voice. Joe Scarborough is simply lost in the ether of his own despair. On October 6, 2006 I was forced, for the first time in my life, to write a letter to a television network. I sped my missive off to MSNBC Viewer Services to make the following request:
I am a big MSNBC fan. I am not, however, a fan of your new habit of allowing the control room to interrupt your news anchors with “Breaking News!” and every time I hear those simpering, ill-spoken interruptions I change the channel. I realize you are trying to be neat and different and cutting-edge but the attempt is a failure. You spend big money on paying anchors who know how to communicate — why do you let technical people on the air to ruin the facade of your news authority?
Directors are in the background and not on camera for a reason: They are not entertaining or interesting and they do not have good speech or vocal abilities. Please remove the control room interruptions from all future broadcasts and let the real pros handle breaking news. Thank you.
My letter has gone unanswered and I still change the channel every time the control room interrupts the news mistress. The 
The “Pop Up News” cuteness is the final straw in my moving back to CNN. I didn’t like “Pop Up Videos” on VH1 or “Pop Up Movie Facts” after my Pay-Per-View movies and I certainly have no desire to watch my cable news life be reduced to silly “Pop”ping up in order to grab attention and cultivate continued dismay at the decline of human culture. Dan Abrams should be ashamed of himself. Perhaps there is hope for news junkies as NBC Universal — an overlord MSNBC — plans to make $750 million in cuts:
NEW YORK (AP) – NBC Universal plans to cut US$750 million in operating expenses by the end of 2007 by eliminating employees, cutting back on scripted shows, and slashing its news budget, according to a report Thursday in the Wall Street Journal. The moves come as more and more viewers and advertisers gravitate toward new media, NBC Universal chairman Bob Wright told the newspaper. He said the moves would restore the company to double-digit growth next year. … NBC’s cost-saving plan involves laying off people from the company’s 11 news divisions, including on-air talent.
Let’s hope Dan Abrams is the first to go quickly followed by “Pop Up” news bites and needless control room interruptions!