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Playing the Sensation Card |
| Section: THE ARTS / PERSPECTIVES |
| Author: Cynthia Grenier |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/1999 |
| Size: 1,903 Words, 12,088 Characters |
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Whatever has been happening to our nightly news programs? Time was, not that long ago, fellows like Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, and Dan Rather considered themselves reporters like their colleagues in print journalism. As news anchors they had become virtual household names.
Today, however, when ratings have become the be-all and end-all to the networks, budgets have been slashed and overseas posts shut down. The anchors themselves, though, continue to enjoy their many-million-dollar salaries, even if basically they've become little more than extremely well paid readers of the news.
Then, too, audiences for the evening news programs are largely composed of folks in the senior citizen category. Witness the number of commercials each night dedicated to medications for relief from acid stomach gas, cereals, denture products, and the like.
Smudging the Line
What has been developing in recent years, however, as the networks' answer to fading ratings, is a vast proliferation of nominally news-oriented programs called "newsmagazines"--like 20/20, Primetime Live, Dateline NBC, and CBS' 48 Hours--where the line between news and entertainment is, well, pretty often...
Read Full Article
...have generated an incredible emphasis on the powerful visual image. That, in turn, increases the risk that on occasion the picture will be transformed into video, which may be more dramatic than totally honest.
All of which goes a long way in explaining why television viewers--along with moviegoers--are exposed to so much today that is often little more than the sleaze of tabloids.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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