oldTV

All this week I’ll be looking at “oldTV.” That’s not television that’s old, but television that old people watch. This kind of television is generally marked by the following: lack of relevance, void of loud music, reaffirms the world has gone to hell and Walter Cronkite voice-overs.

The network evening news cast used to be where America got their news. Now there probably not even in the top ten. The anchors were American stalwarts; our moral compasses. Now they are the butt of jokes; more fodder for the tabloids than anything else. It is a refuse for those still caught in the outdated notion that network newsrooms own the patent on gathering information, are objective and unbiased, and news is only important from 6pm to 6:30p.

The ABC’s World News Tonight or ABC World News Tonight started in 1953 as a 15 minute newscast.

The CBS Evening News has been on since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963.

The NBC Nightly News broadcasts from the GE Building in New York City. It has been known by that name since 1970 (1956 to 1970). Before that it was the Huntley-Brinkley Report and before that the Camel New Caravan (1949 to 1956).

All these shows are over 50 years old and oddly enough, besides technology, not much has changed.

Snuffleupagus

ABC has received a lot of criticism lately for the way Charles Gibson and Snuffleupagus prepared for the last Democratic presidential debate. Apparently 10.7 million people watched the Wednesday night debate. Or as I like to say 10.7 million people who couldn’t find anything better to do. The criticism, according to Obama himself, is for the first 45 minutes of the debate Gibson and Snuffleupagus didn’t ask a single question about the war in Iraq, the economy, the war in Iraq, healthcare or the war in Iraq. Instead, Gibson and Snuffleupagus asked about all the hyperboles and lies that have come forth from the mouths of Obama and Clinton. According to message boards and blogs and as we all know they are infallible, most of the 10.7 million people agreed with Senator Obama that ABC’s debate was deplorable. But it wasn’t. First of all, if you’re a democrat, don’t you know already know what the senators are going to say about the war, the economy and the healthcare? They have been campaigning for about 11 years! You mean to tell me you still don’t know their position on those issues? You only have to learn one stance per issue, because they both think the same way. Second of all, I think the lies, hyperboles and utter nonsense that spews from their mouths is important and they should be questioned about it. I think Gibson and Snuffleupagus should have asked Senator Obama why he hates poor, religious Americans, why he’s a member of the Weather Underground and why he refuses to wear an American flag pin on his lapel.