The First Lady and the Queen

The media has been sickeningly obsessed with a few seconds of interaction between Michelle Obama and Queen Elizabeth II. President Obama and the first lady went to visit the Queen at Buckingham Palace while in London this week for a G-20 financial summit. While there, Michelle greeted the Queen with a hug and put her arm around the Queen's waist. The Queen returned the gesture in kind. It was one of the very few times we have witnessed the Queen doing a human thing in the last 75 years.

Upon this historic occasion, you would have thought that a third degree felony had been committed by the First Lady. Newspapers and broadcast media came down on her hard...some not so hard because they really didn't know how to handle it.

The nation's news media has become digustingly obsessed with the trivial. Two famous people can't put their arms around each other in an affectionate gesture without creating an international incident that goes on and on forever in discussion. Experts from near and far, many with British accents, some with Spanish, French and American accents, are presented on cable news programs analyzing what was not more than a few seconds.

The Queen probably suffered more irreparable damage from receiving a measly IPod as a gift from the President than getting a hug from the First Lady. There is little doubt that after a few years of intensive psychotherapy the Queen will get over it. The First Lady will be guilt ridden for the rest of her life but that, too, can be diminished with the right mix of counseling, hypnotherapy, medications and relaxation exercises.

Do we really need a media that obsesses on the trivial? Do we honestly need a media that goes on for days and days about a mistake by one of our leaders that has been explained away dozens of times and poses no threat to national security?

There's a lot of time to fill on cable news stations. While I think some mention of news oddities is called for, turning an appetizer into a five course meal with dessert is not. If there's not enough news in the day to put important things into perspective, shorten the analysis and broadcast reruns of the Huntley-Brinkley Report, the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite (and Douglas Edwards before that). I'd even go for some outdated doses of Edward R. Murrow as well.

Those old guys didn't analyze things...you couldn't say "anal" on the air back then. They let the newsmakers do their thing and they reported it. If somebody had put their arm around the Queen, they would have mentioned it once and wished the participants well.

And that's the way it is...Good Night and Good Luck!

WTVT - WFTS Marriage...An April Fools Joke???

Hugh Smith got up out of his grave to call me and tell me what he heard in the heavens...days earlier...that his alma mater, WTVT, Channel 13, the Fox affiliate in Tampa, Florida will now be sharing news video with WFTS, Channel 28, the ABC station. Yes, the economy has apparently gotten the best of journalistic ethics. No longer can viewers expect exclusivity...it won't even matter which station you may be watching.

At first look, this isn't really a big deal. Two stations have decided to get cheap because the recession has caused revenues to decline sharply. What they won't tell you is viewship has been down for a very long time as cable, Verizon Fios, satellite, the Internet and other outlets have so diluted viewership that the most practical thing will ultimately be to bring the news into individual homes for private showings.

It's long been a practice for stations to pool video under special circumstances and that has worked out well. But to join cameras in a long term marriage is a whole other story. I started working in television news in the Tampa Bay market in 1965 as a stringer for WFLA. Sharing our film with another stations would have been unthinkable. We were friendly competitors but we were guarded about information we might share...NEVER, EVER would we give away video content.

It's scary the way things are going now. There's so much more news to cover...and the stations can only afford to hire mostly beginner street reporters. That's OK, they have to get their experience somewhere. However, it sickens me that we will be now raising a new generation of television journalists who share their work product incestuously and think because it's disclosed and endorsed by management that it's the right thing to do.

Not only is it the wrong thing, it's repulsive and irresponsible. If a station is having economic problems, it ought to just get out of the news business...or go non-profit and raise money for operations through a foundation.

I don't think I'm going to get my digital converter after all. I prefer to watch snow.

Nah, Nah, this has got to be an April Fools joke...OK, I'll go along with that!