The "Lost" Malaysian Airlines flight dominates television news
There is sympathy and concern here about the lost Malaysian Airlines flight. There is not, however, the desire to see virtually every network news program open with the story for days on end, except for the sanity of PBS of course.
Apparently, through almost real time market surveys and focus groups, the major networks, cable networks, and even local news stations have determined that viewer interest in this flight is intense and not going away. When a network news program is chosen here it is always NBC, due to the fact that Richard Engel is viewed as the best Middle East and now Eastern European correspondent out there. With a world political crisis clearly in process, a showdown between Russia's Putin and the Western powers, uncertainty about who the interim Ukraine leadership really is, the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the ongoing devastation in Syria, the unsettled economy in China, with all of that and more, almost every day for the last 12 days NBC has led with the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 story. Each day there is almost no incremental news, or just enough to take a minute or two but not six or seven minutes.
It was reported today that CNN's constant coverage of the story has led to a significant increase in ratings. A CNN executive was quoted saying, "this is a story in our wheel house." The interest in this story is understandable, the obsession with it could be viewed as troubling. It is diverting, and everyone can wonder and wait and not think. Some have said that the highly popular television program "Lost" is partially due to this attention and to various theories at to what happened. Here the constant rotation of a handful or two of "experts" adding little or no new information is boring and bizarre.
Apparently, through almost real time market surveys and focus groups, the major networks, cable networks, and even local news stations have determined that viewer interest in this flight is intense and not going away. When a network news program is chosen here it is always NBC, due to the fact that Richard Engel is viewed as the best Middle East and now Eastern European correspondent out there. With a world political crisis clearly in process, a showdown between Russia's Putin and the Western powers, uncertainty about who the interim Ukraine leadership really is, the annexation of Crimea by Russia, the ongoing devastation in Syria, the unsettled economy in China, with all of that and more, almost every day for the last 12 days NBC has led with the Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 story. Each day there is almost no incremental news, or just enough to take a minute or two but not six or seven minutes.
It was reported today that CNN's constant coverage of the story has led to a significant increase in ratings. A CNN executive was quoted saying, "this is a story in our wheel house." The interest in this story is understandable, the obsession with it could be viewed as troubling. It is diverting, and everyone can wonder and wait and not think. Some have said that the highly popular television program "Lost" is partially due to this attention and to various theories at to what happened. Here the constant rotation of a handful or two of "experts" adding little or no new information is boring and bizarre.
posted by John Borden at 4:46 PM
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