Sit and Deliver

   I may be the only one in the world who is bothered by this, but since it is me that is doing the writing here, I am going to voice my displeasure.  Since my adolescence, I have been a news junky.  Since we got satellite TV many years ago, the cable news networks have been my stations of default.  

    Lately, things have been happening to those news networks that I really don’t like.  CBC (the Canadian Broadcasting Corp) had always been one of my favorite station for news, now it is one of the best examples of what I don’t like.   ( I am discounting the US networks since I wrote them off years ago).

Here are the trends I don’t like:

1. All the small talk, and chat.  I am assuming most people who tune into the news, do so, to actually hear the news, and not to listen in to inane and meaningless conversations between the presenters.   Sometimes interaction between news presenters is witty and real, but what I am talking about, is the scheduled and forced banter.  Drop it and get to the news.
2. Standing Up.  Some time ago, some program manager came up with the idea that news presenters should stand up and walk around instead of sitting at a desk.  Now, one by one, the news stations are adopting the habit.  To me it seems contrived and forced, something that the program manager told the presenters to do.  I was very sorry, to see BBC, (top photo), one of my favorite news stations, now conforming to the trend.  Instead of pacing around, relax, have a seat, and just give us the news.
3. All the distractions.  This complaint I aim at CBC (2nd photo).  A couple of years ago, they seemingly decided to outdo other news broadcasts with all color and flash.  The banner headlines that used to slowly flow across the bottom of the screen, suddenly zipped rapidly into place, then zoomed away as the next headline slammed into place.  Most of he news presenters seem loud and have an edge to there voice, which is now accompanied with background music whose beat booms away to intensify the sizzle of the presentation.  Colors flash and streak across the screen.  It is all very distracting and irritating.

    I would now like to compliment CTV, for not totally jumping on the bandwagon (Photo at the end of the blog).  They did go for the two presenter trend, but at least they let them sit down.  Their news is not accompanied with a lot of flash and noise, it is given in a calm, thoughtful, and straight forward way, which I appreciate.

    Being the realist that I am, I realize that is probably only a matter of time before they too cave in to the trends and make their news readers wander around a brightly colored studio making small talk to each other.  I wonder where I will go for news then?

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