TVSquad

Back in the day when dinosaurs roamed the earth TV news seemed much simpler. You had your normal noon, 6:00 and 11:00 pm newscasts (sometimes 5:00 pm as well, if you were lucky). If something major happened, like an airline crash, the local or national news would interrupt Match Game with a 'BREAKING NEWS' bulletin, say what needed to be said, and then return you back to normal programming to watch Richard Dawson say something randy.

That's not the way it happens anymore in this 24 by 7 world of information saturation. Now, the 'Breaking News' banner is thrown onto any type of news story that crops up, from a winter storm on the East Coast to the continuing battle over Anna Nicole Smith's body. Not only that, but they now throw in banners like 'Developing Story' and 'Just In' on these stories, which just confuses the hell out of me. Frankly, stories that feature these headers all seem like 'Breaking News' stories to me.

As expected, Katie Couric didn't drastically change how the networks do the nightly news, though there were a few interesting tweaks and one major scoop.

Couric has been saying that she wants to go deeper into the news headlines, and she seems to be doing that, by having more than one guest come on during a story about the war. At the same time, there seems to be less stories covered in the half hour than there used to be. And, of course, the web is going to play a big part in the program. The broadcast is the very first to be simulcast on the web live, and Couric is keeping a blog. Well, she started it. Looks like "CBS & Co." will be contributing, which probably means that Couric won't do much at all and other staff members and reporters will do most of the blogging.