News Reporting Going Down Hill

I have been increasingly unhappy with television new reporting. To me it was highlighted by the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes. All the networks just put their anchors or assistant anchors on planes and flew them to the trouble spots. They apparently didn't have any correspondents on the same continent who could speak intelligently about the countries. In general, CNN has fallen spectacularly. Ted Turner must be ashamed of what his network has become. I recently ran across this report of CNN dumping its science expertise, although it happened about a year ago.

Today's news now largely consists of warmed over summaries of New York Times or Washington Post stories, and commentators arguing with each other about them, Crossfire style. The BBC still does some real reporting, and PBS often uses some real reporting from British news agencies. Reuters also still does some real reporting, as do the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, at least on financial topics. But not-PBS news is practically worthless, except as a summary of what the few remaining new organizations have already said.