It’s Because Christiane Amanpour Is Leaving, Isn’t It?
Are You Still Watching CNN? (Because Nobody Else Is)
First-quarter Nielsen ratings are out, and everyone is talking about CNN’s (continued) primetime ratings free-fall. While Fox News remains No. 1, MSNBC and CNN’s sister network HLN are now regularly outperforming The Coop and his cohorts.
In today’s New York Times, Bill Carter gives a run-down of CNN’s sad state of affairs. According to Carter, Larry King not only had his worst quarter ever during the first three months of 2010, but is now threatened by View co-host-turned-primetime HLN talking head Joy Behar. Anderson Cooper isn’t faring much better: CNN’s silver fox saw his audience drop 42 percent in the first quarter and now finds himself occasionally losing to repeats of Olbermann and Maddow on MSNBC.
As you can see above, Fox News continues to be far and away the most highly watched news network in primetime. But MSNBC, which is also down in overall primetime viewers (but hasn’t been losing them as quickly as CNN), is now in second place.
If Blogs Are Becoming More Like Newspapers, They’re Still Not Quite There Yet
One of Gawker’s night (+weekend, now, I guess?) editors, Ravi Somaiya, wrote this piece yesterday about how blogs are becoming more like newspapers. Naturally, it grabbed my attention, since my experience is with newspapers (which are, you know, not doing so hot), and I intern at a blog (Gawker, in fact. When worlds collide!!)
While I agree that blogs can be great at summarizing or repackaging or expanding content with commentary or analysis or a fresh angle, etc. (and that that, and no longer “rehashed news stories with a dash of puerile snark,” is what they must rely on to be competitive), it seems to me like it would be very difficult for blogs — at least in their current form and on a broad scale — to legitimately compete with newspapers for news.
Attention-grabbing headlines, editorial transparency, and heated competition for readers may be things that blogs have in common with newspapers, but they’re also what blogs have in common with cable TV punditry. (Well, maybe not the transparency part, but you get the idea.)
But becoming more like newspapers (emphasis on the news part)? I’m not sure we’re quite there yet. More »
‘She Said I’ve Reached Another Adolescent Monsoon’
On Monday, I had the great pleasure of having a tooth extracted. It was a surgical extraction, although it wasn’t really that bad except it had been postponed several hours and I was tired and hungry and the procedure’s cost bankrupted my checking account.
I got shot up with a very large needle of novocaine and had to listen to some extremely unpleasant crunching sounds as the doctor prodded my mouth with a drill and forceps, and there was bleeding and several gauze pads and some extra-strength ibuprofen, but it didn’t hurt at all, not during surgery or afterwards.
In fact, the bottle of Vicodin on my desk is still full. I’ve been popping generic brand ibuprofens like crazy, but mostly just for the soreness and swelling.
There were a few moments during the procedure when I thought, “Oh god, that was the drill; this is going to fucking hurt,” but they were fleeting and I quickly realized I was fine: it wasn’t really pain, just some uncomfortable pressure.
It’s hard to distinguish the two, sometimes.
More »
This Shit is Bananas, B-A-N-A-N-A-S
I was “sternly talked to” by a security guard for taking this, but — why isn’t there a single ripe banana?
I am ashamed of you, Bowery Whole Foods.
This Is Not a Blind Joke, I Swear (At Least Not Intentionally?)
Oh, is this the so-called “bombshell?”
…I see.
