TVSquad

I agree! I loathe our local news stations because of crap like this. Especially when we get a little tiny bit of snow and they break in with "Storm Watch 2006" alerts.

Reply

It's been a slow news week and people are tired of/don't want to be hearing about dying Americans/Iraqis around the holidays. So voila....the news machine grabs onto the Oregon climbers.

There's the news cycle for you.

Reply

Wow... I was just having this conversation with my dad. Joel, you read my mind.

Reply

I agree. Also, I am so sick of these selfish climbers who for their own narcissistic whims, put their families through heartache while risking the lives of all the rescue crew as well as wasting all these federal funds involved in their rescue.

I hope this will serve as a lesson to all future climbers. They should have to sign a waiver saying that "if I lose contact, I will not expect any federal or state rescue attempts - any costs incurred during attempts to rescue me will be paid from my own funds."

Reply

I wish I had the desire to be a journalist or to own a network, because the number one rule would be variety. I feel sad when 24h news channels concentrate on 1 piece of news, because some of us react by being beaten into submission, while some of us become quite unappreciative and learn to boycott those certain news channels.(I mean, many times, they repeat the same exact reading they did 2-3 hours. Enough!) PBS/BBC is still a safe haven, thank goodness, but can we get a sane news network closer to home?

Reply

And more: there is a recent problem with gossipy sounding real news lately. Please! I don't feel like listening to Extra! when I want to listen to N-E-W-S.

Reply

News isn't news anymore, it's infotainment. People care more about human interest stories, particularly ones involving attractive white people. Start talking about real issues and people change the channel.

Reply

brittany sphears needs to take her underwear off again so they have something else to talk about.

Reply

How is hearing about people dying/missing in Oregon a better thing to watch on the news during the holidays than people dying in Iraq?

But this is why it's not even remotely worth watching the new, period. There's much better ways to find stories that are actually significant. My mother had never heard of Darfur until yesterday.

Reply

I live in Oregon-- near the base of Mt. Hood and I'm totally confused about why it's making international news (a friend from London said they're monitoring it there- WTF?). People get lost and die on Mt. Hood EVERY SINGLE YEAR. This is nothing new to us down here in the valley. We just wonder why those yahoos didn't rent beacons for $5.

I agree that it's a slow news day- news directors are bored with the 'toys for tots for christmas' stories that they do every year. I also think that because the James Kim story got so much attention, the networks are assuming that people love stories about people lost in the wilderness. They don't understand the difference: what happened to James Kim and his family could've happened to anyone. That's at least part of the reason why it was so captivating (feeling like I know him is the main reason). I can't relate to these three climbers because I'd never climb Mt. Hood in the winter or summer.

Reply

I agree. They have to fill the 24 hour news channels (do we really need three or four or five?) with something.

Men getting trapped on a mountain in bad weather is not big news.

A comedian once said that a shark bitting a man in the ocean is not news. If the shark came out of the water, went to 7-11, and bought a slurpee...that'd be news.

Reply

Are there toys under the tree that will kill your kids and make your dogs hair fall out????????

We'll have the story tonight at 11:00

Reply

What's even more stupid is that during the press conference they told the media that they were NOT going to speculate and some jerk askes what they speculate about something. Um hello? Freaking pay attention.

Other stupid questions were something like, were the ice caves close to each other, were there foot prints from one to the other, who found the ice cave, who found the body, who shot Mr. Burns, etc...

(just kidding on that last one).

Another funny thing, they played a clip from Lewis Black on Raw Dog (Sirius Satellite Radio) and he was talking about how crazy the coverage for that Shaviago woman was and it was everywhere. That's how I felt about the coverage.

That's why I try not to watch the "news" as much as possible.

Reply

The biggest lesson we can learn from these two stories is; if you find yourself in the Oregon mountains in winter, DON'T LEAVE YOUR CAR!

Reply

Thank you. I've been thinking it for days, but was unable to get the words out in any good order.

Reply

Indeed. "Meet The Press" was overtaken by this supposedly breaking news (though it's available later at night, as well). With so much wasteful coverage on television (why cursory Iran, Iraq, China, and North Korea coverage, largely irrelevant Darfur tales, and 3-day "crises" instead of, say, the willful assassination of Russian oligarchs and dissidents by their rulers, Litvinienko notwithstanding?), it's a wonder that anyone bothers with anything but intellectual newspapers, magazines, and journals for in-depth information.

Reply

Its not solely an American phenomenon. The three major network channels in Australia pull the same stunt - smothering us with powderpuff pieces while donning a plastic smile. The rub is that we only have 5 free-to-air stations down here, so we're basically farked. Thank heavens for the Internet...!

Reply

....And yes, this story is being inexplicably broadcasted down here, too.

Reply