Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Lamenting Aaron Brown -- Anderson Cooper Ali Velshi and the 30 second sound bite

Perhaps it's age, but I find myself reaching for the remote after about 20 seconds of watching AC 360.

Over the past few years I became habituated to looking to CNN at 10PM to deliver at least a modicum of detail and objectivity to the key news stories of the day. Their former host, Aaron Brown, though gentle and folksy, at least gave the major stories a reasonable level of detail and respect. So out of brand allegiance to CNN I still tune in at 10PM for the headlines.

Now sadly I find a cartoonesque, thirty second sound bite approach that distills complex issues into simplistic graphs on the "magic" screen, or into a few slides "interpreted" by chief business correspondent Ali Velshi who seems long on catchy names and visual recognition (shaved head and pinstripes) and short on depth.

Increasingly I'm switching to the BBC World News in the hope that someone somewhere is giving the issues the depth they deserve.

Wither the News Hour?