Can anyone remember a time when shows like "The Today Show" and "Good Morning America" were actually worth watching? I was a religious "Today Show" watcher for many years and it was part of my routine to watch it as I prepared for the daily grind. Matt and Katie were my primary sources for what was happening in the world. They were my generation's version of Walter Cronkite or Huntley & Brinkley. They were respectable, intelligent, approachable--like revered members of the family with whom you spent a small portion of each morning just to get things started off right. Even when the news was bad, you could count on Matt and Katie to be there for you; there was a calming reassurance to their presence, even in the face of disasters such as 9/11. Then, at some point, something happened and "The Today Show" became an entertainment show, with news filler thrown in (instead of the other way around). Unable to stomach the sight of Matt arguing the merits of psychiatry with an omniscient Tom Cruise, or Katie's eyes glazing over as Brittney's latest exploits were analyzed by a trio of cackling show biz vultures, I decided that I'd had enough. I jumped ship and switched over to Diane Sawyer and "Good Morning America". Much to my chagrin, I found that the exact same situation existed over on ABC; Diane & Co. were in much the same boat as my good friends, Matt and Katie. Their long-running news show was reduced to fauning, self-congratulatory, mind-numbing, celebrity non-news. By the time I found my way back to NBC and "The Today Show", Katie had also jumped ship, landing with an unfortunately resounding thud at another network's evening news desk. She may have lost a good portion of her audience but at least she doesn't have to embarass herself with the kind of slackjawed, ass-kissing "reporting" that has come to characterize the news show she left.
Part of me believes that "The Today Show" stopped being a news program shortly after 9/11, when the people at the top of the network food chain decided to divert attention away from the real news--and believe me, there is still real news happening all the time--in order to play upon the American fascination with celebrity, to spoon-feed us meaningless slop while the world went to hell in a handbasket. How else do you explain two terms with George W. Bush? Most Americans were asleep at the wheel, their minds reeling from the asinine antics of LindseyBrittneyParis; their collective misadventures, arrests, and incarcerations garnered more media coverage than the Kennedy assassination! And to what effect? Were we just too numbed out and dumbed down from the endless barrage of LindseyBrittneyParis photo-ops to give a damn anymore? So what if the administration has been involved in more lowdown shenanigans than any other in recent memory? We're already exhausted from all this Hollywood business! It's dispiriting to see Matt Lauer stooping daily to the level of middle school wiseguy, jousting with, then cozying up to various showbiz entities. It's unworthy of him, and unworthy of his fellow castmates. And I'm not sure what's up with Meredith Viera; she took Katie's place, yet her seat is vacant on more and more weekdays when I tune in. Maybe she's had enough already.
I think that "The Today Show" should get back to reporting the news, and talking about real issues, and interviewing people who really matter, people who really make a difference in our lives and make our lives better. I know that, in many cases (especially mine!), IQ's could probably be raised a point or two just from having been exposed to the real events that are going on in our world right now. I'm not against interviewing celebrities, but for God's sake, interview celebrities who show some sense, who have contributed something, and who aren't out to get their mug plastered on the front page for stupid, reckless behavior. It's distracting, and in this day and age, we need to be paying attention to the people that have been (rightly or wrongly) placed in charge of leading our country.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Like you, I also watched "The Today Show" almost religiously. Well, perhaps watched isn't the right word. The cast of "The Today Show" accompanied me in the morning as I fed the dogs, the cats, myself, readied for work, and sat down with a bowl of cereal and my morning coffee before heading out the door.
And even through the horrible events of September 11 that are still fresh in my mind, "The Today Show" continued to remain my prime source of news as I do not watch any other form of news; I don't even read the newspaper anymore.
However, something did happen. I don't know if it was programming that changed or what. I only know that since Katie Couric left, I have not sat down to watch a segment on "The Today Show" as I used to. I would rather sit in silence and read my headline on the internet now as, that way, I can control the style of journalism that I want to read.
And you failed to mention the "leave no emotion unmanipulated" Ann Curry. Is she creepily intense or intensely creepy? The Katie and Matt chemistry is hard to duplicate, and I miss it. To think that Katie and Les Moonves didn't realize that the skill sets for network news anchor and Today show host are pretty much mutually exclusive, when I realized that all along, astounds me -- I'm not paid a dime to realize such things. But I got off Matt when he had a fawning interview with one of the "La" pedophiles. LaFave? LaTourneau? Doesn't matter, he was way, way too sympatico with her for my tastes, seemingly wanting to "understand" or something. I wrote NBC after that gem, asking if anyone there realized she was a sexual molester of children, and why wasn't something along those lines brought up in the interview -- or, better yet, why wouldn't something like that dictate that a nationally broadcast interview with such a heinous lowlife was unneeded? No reply.
Post a Comment