TVSquad

Doing the news can't be easy. It's a lot more than just reading the teleprompter, especially when you do it live. The really good anchors make it look easy and the merely competent ones make it look hard (but you feel for them). It's the really bad ones that make you cringe and throw something at the TV (or change the channel). Not only are they incompetent when it comes to skills, they have an off-putting air about them. At best they are anchors who should be reporters and not sit in an anchor chair.

I've picked the three very worst ones I can find on TV right now. And just so we're clear, I'm talking about news people who read the news or anchor. So you won't see show hosts like Nancy Grace or Bill O'Reilly here. And I'm concentrating on national anchors, not local ones. There's not enough space on the web to do one on local anchors. Though I'd love to do one on Boston anchors some day.

1. Rick Sanchez (CNN): Do I really have to explain why he's #1? OK...

Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather has some harsh words for the show and Katie Couric.

Rather was on MSNBC, talking to Joe Scarborough (he's in Imus' spot in the morning right now) via phone. Although he said that Couric is a nice person, he also said that the show has been "dumbing it down, tarting it up," and that they're really focusing too much on celebrity coverage now.

The latest from the land of CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News:

1. Jeff Greenfield is leaving CNN. He's going over to CBS to become part of their Election 2008 (or whatever CBS is calling it) coverage. The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz says that Greenfield hasn't been too happy with the way CNN has been using him lately.

2. Dan Abrams to lose his title at MSNBC. Last year he got a promotion from on-air host/analyst to general manager, but it looks like Abrams will lose that title when the cable network moves from New Jersey to 30 Rock in NYC. The move probably won't happen until the end of the year.

3. Nancy Grace and John Gibson news. Both of their shows (Grace on CNN Headline News and Gibson over on FOX News) had "Breaking News" reports that Michael Jackson was really ill in the hospital, when he actually is just a little sick and not in the hospital at all. Yet more evidence that the "Breaking News" and "This Just In" and "Developing News" graphics are waaaaay overused. Don't the networks use judgment anymore?

[via TV Newser]

Hey, did you hear? Anna Nicole Smith died and there's a fight over her corpse. Also, there's genocide in Darfur, quite possibly because of something Howard K. Stern said.

Over the last two weeks, I've been subjected to a rash of televised news about fluffy non-stories that I didn't care about. I bemoaned the state of American News Television and nodded knowingly when SNL (such a satire, that SNL) ran a skit that said the same thing.

Except here's the thing: I did sorta care about Anna Nicole Smith. And yes, I cared more about her than the genocide in Darfur. Does that make me a classless, shortsighted, anti-intellectual? Yep. It also makes me an American.

I've never used Pipeline, the news video service that CNN has incorporate into its web site. I think I went to the site one time to check it out, but you had to register or had to pay for it or something so I didn't do it. But it has received great reviews, and tomorrow we'll be able to see what the fuss is about.

Pipeline will be free to everyone tomorrow (though I'm not sure if you'll have to register first). And they'll have some big stories covered: the Academy Award nominations at 8:30 in the morning, coverage of the Sundance Film Festival, and President Bush's State of the Union Address at 9pm. Plus, I'm sure they'll be live coverage of breaking news and press conferences all day long, not to mention whatever Paris Hilton is up to.

[via TV Newser]

i don't really want to report for i-Report.

That's what CNN calls the video and picture reports that its viewers send in. You're supposed to e-mail or phone any reports you might get from news that's breaking: natural disasters, fires, car chases, celebrity sightings, whatever. I haven't seen too many of these reports on the network (though it is a regular thing so I've probably just missed them), but do they credit you with the pictures/video/audio or just give a general "here's footage shot from a CNN viewer" nod? And I'm sure they don't pay you, right? That would be a whole different level. So you're basically a photographer/videographer for CNN but you don't get paid or any other benefits from it. I bet they'd even frown on you using something on your resume like "correspondent for CNN's i-Report division."

Anyone out there ever send anything in to CNN (or MSNBC/Fox News)?

Yup, the host of MSNBC's The Abrams Report is the new head of the cable news outlet, replacing Rich Kaplan, who recently resigned.

Abrams official title is "general manager," whereas Kaplan's title was "president," but it's basically the same gig. Abrams won't host his show anymore, but he'll still be MSNBC's chief legal correspondent.

Does this mean that everyone who works there moves up a notch, and Rita Cosby is now Chief Financial Officer?

[via Romenseko]

There's been a lot of talk lately about the state of network news. With the resignation of Dan Rather, the retirement of Tom Brokaw, and the death of Peter Jennings, along with the coverage of news we get with CNN, MSNBC, and FOX, many feel that the days of the dinnertime nightly network news shows are just about over. But not so fast: Verne Gay at Newsday gives his ten reasons why we need those network news shows.