TVSquad

It's becoming harder and harder to tell the difference between shows like The Daily Show and The Situation Room or The Colbert Report and The O'Reilly Factor. Oh sure, i can tell the shows apart. I just can't decide which is funnier. Sometimes I wonder why Sean Hannity hasn't won the Thurber Prize.

No one has exploited the news' foibles and follies better than The Onion. Their newspaper parody crippled news junkies with laughter and probably the newspaper industry, as well, which is a bigger shame for newspaper people since The Onion is free. Their mockery of the 24-hour cable news network was just as brilliant and parallel.

But the line between news and news humor has now gone from aluminum gray to a dark and smokey charcoal. They have actually hired former CNN anchor Bobbie Battista.

Check out her hard-hitting report about a new video game that's destined to become more popular than Smashing Cute Bunnies Into a Gooey Paste. It's twice as fun on the Nintendo Wii, for obvious reasons.



Whoa, that's quite a mind#*$&. How did a big time CNN anchor get involved with such hard hitting satire? Just imagine the trend this might spark. TV journalists and pundits might actually adapt and grow (gasp!) a sense of humor. Intelligent design my ass.

News anchors making the jump from journalism to jestering might seem rare, but it's not uncommon. NBC's Brian Williams hosted Saturday Night Live and draws laughs when he appears on The Daily Show and other late night shows. Journalist Edwin Newman also hosted an episode of SNL where he took over the Weekend Update anchor's chair and even anchored a TV version of the supermarket tabloid Weekly World News on the USA Network. That last credit alone makes him twice as credible as a news source than Nancy Grace and Sean Hannity combined.

The CNNObservations blog doesn't ask how Battista hooked up with the humor organization, but she does say that she joined the newscast because she thinks "it's always important not to take yourself too terribly seriously." That explains why she left the cable news industry in 2001. Listing "had my sense of humor surgically removed" on a resume under skills will at least get you a bureau chief job at any of the major cable news network.

She also had some astute and pointed criticisms for her former choice of business. She said she likes how the networks have managed to incorporate new technologies and mediums into their business, but she has a big problem with what's being covered "because there has been a deterioration in the quality and depth of coverage. I think we haven't yet managed to figure out how these two things work well together yet! And I have to say sometimes I really miss getting my news straight up without all the bells and whistles and over-the-top, tiresome personalities."

It's funny. I can remember a time when networks like CNN and CNBC were so mellow and stodgy that they would literally put me to sleep. Cable news seemed a lot more useful back then.

[via New York Times]