TVSquad

My friends, if you thought the coverage that's been going on since the day after the 2006 Congressional election has been overwhelming, you ain't seen nothing yet. Come sunrise on November 4th the television airwaves will be inundated with election coverage, comment, pontification, and general BS. Red states will become blue, blue states will become red, graphs will be drawn on easel boards with black marker and someone will predict the winner of the entire Presidential election at 7:00:01 p.m.

So, if you are wholly disinterested in the old way that the elections are covered you may want to tune into Current TV, or its website if you don't have the channel on your digital box, for an alternative to get the results you need. In this case, it's you, the couch potato that you are, who will be providing the coverage. It's called "Current Diggs the Election" and the way it works will be unique.

TV viewers will remember the series of commercials that featured the animated law enforcement icon McGruff The Crime Dog, the ones that told us to "take a bite outta crime." He now has a blog.

Yup, the crime-solving (or crime-preventing) canine takes his paws and taps out blog entries for the kids to read, handing out advice about safety, health, and life in general. You can also read stories on how McGruff became a crime dog (he used to hang out at the local police station and listen to cop stories and asked cops how he could help - the cops said "what's a dog going to do to fight crime?" - I guess a talking dog was OK but a talking dog that fought crime was completely unrealistic) and play McGruff games.

I've been to a handful of comedy shows in my life, and I can't say I've ever seen a bona fide heckler. I have seen people who want to converse with the comedian during their set, which is probably just as annoying.

However, hecklers aren't only found in the back of comedy clubs. They've gotten under the skin of everyone from movie directors to sports figures to politicians, and the anonymity of the Web has allowed for even more of them to pop up on messageboards and forums to let everyone know just who sucks and who sucks even more. If there were a way to make money from telling creative people you don't like them and that they should die, we'd have a lot more millionaires.

I know, you might be thinking, who is Stephen Talbot and why should I care what he thinks of the TV news biz? Well, Talbot is a producer and writer for PBS' Frontline (his new episode, News War, debuted earlier this week), but that's not why I'm posting this. I'll explain that after the jump. In the meantime, go read the chat he has at The Washington Post's site and look at his picture closely. Where have you seen him before?

Talbot has a lot of interesting things to say about the news industry. He likes local news, but doesn't like it when they focus on just local stories, fears that people will just wake up one day and wonder why the only news they get is stuff about Anna Nicole and Britney, and he explains why Connie Chung gave up her great reporting career to do...well, whatever the hell she's doing now.

Oh, where have you seen him before?

Oh, aren't there more important stories to worry about in these times?

There's a scandal brewing in the TV news and donut-loving communities (I guess it's no surprise that those two different communities would overlap some day). It seems that CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric mentioned how much she likes the Munchkins over at Dunkin' Donuts on her blog, and then Dunkin Donuts sent her "a gazillion of them...boxes...along with crates of piping hot coffee." Of course, this sent bloggers and people who comment on blogs over the edge, accusing Couric of breaking ethical rules and getting paid off.

Calm down, breathe, and think about this rationally. Do you think Couric wrote this so she could get free donuts? Do you really, really think that getting some free food from a local business is going to sway the way Couric covers the company or, um, donuts in general? Alarm clock catastrophe!

At this point I'd just like to say I love the new Lexus.

[via Gawker]

Weird story out of Minneapolis. Katie Couric made an appearance in the city recently as part of her "Eye on America" campaign to introduce herself as the new anchor of the CBS Evening News (she starts in September).

Here's the weird part: Matt Bartel, who does the MNSpeak blog, was given an invitation to one of the events as a journalist. But at the last minute he was pulled out of the crowd by organizers because they found out he was a blogger! They told him "we don't want you to participate," and asked him for his notebook. When he refused, they decided he could stay if he gave them his pen.

Yeah, because there's no way that he could report on what happened by memory or a digital recorder or a second pen or something. But Bartel says there really wasn't that much to report.

But there is some shocking news to report: Bartel told Couric he doesn't own a television. Doesn't own a television?! What's up with that?

• Remember the classic M*A*S*H episode told entirely from the point of view of a wounded soldier? Ken Levin co-wrote that episode, and writes about it on his addictive blog.
• TV Barn's Aaron Barnhart talks to Harry Shearer about Dan Rather, the media, and more.
• This is what's great about the web: every day, you learn someone you didn't know had a blog actuallyone. Like Time TV critic James Poniewozik.
• Remember when MTV used to show music videos all day long? EW's PopWatch blog talks about Pitchfork Media's list of 100 Awesome Music Videos.