TVSquad

This clip from The Daily Show pretty much summarizes what's wrong with the cable news channels. And no, Jon Stewart isn't just dumping on Fox News here, he also goes after MSNBC for being obsessed with Rush Limbaugh and CNN for their insane i-Report/Twitter reliance.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
"i" on News
thedailyshow.com

I can't tell you exactly what I'll be doing every weekday at 3pm starting September 8, but I do know one thing: I won't be watching CNN anymore.

New CNN Director of Programming Scott Matthews sent out an e-mail to the entire staff earlier this week outlining the on-air changes that will start on that day. Heidi Collins will anchor solo from 9am to 11am, then Tony "I Always Look Over To The Side For Some Reason" Harris takes over solo from 11am to 1pm, then Kyra Phillips (she's great!) does the 1pm to 3pm slot, and then...drumroll please...Rick Sanchez takes over from 3pm to 4pm. I've talked about my aversion to Sanchez before, but I guess the people at CNN just don't see what viewers see. I suppose we should be thankful that he's only doing a one hour shift and not the two hours that the others are doing. I guess I can switch to something else between 3 and 4.

Where is Don Lemon in all of this? He won't be anchoring on the weekdays anymore. He's taking over the CNN Newsroom gig on the weekends and will become a correspondent the rest of the week.

Wow, talk about not knowing who to root for.

Bill O'Reilly is hotter than...well, something that gets really hot...at CNN anchor Rick Sanchez. O'Reilly made some comments on his Radio Factor show that many, including MediaMatters.org, have taken as racist. And O'Reilly is ticked off at the media in general and CNN/Sanchez in particular. He actually called Sanchez about the way CNN handled the story. Sanchez said that O'Reilly "screamed at the top of his lungs."

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...

Rick Sanchez is up to no good again... Part of me feels like he only continues his ridiculous stunts, not in the name of his so-called "journalism", but to appear on The Daily Show. Maybe he secretly likes getting ridiculed by Jon.

"Showdown in Crisisland": Tehran Bureau Chief John Oliver's New York accent is hilarious. Yup, the only thing funnier than an American with a poor British accent is listening to an English person over-stressing the R's of an American one. Best line: "Iran is the Jan Brady of international evil".

When we're in grade school, or even high school, and we walk into class and we see that our regular teacher isn't there, we're happy. We like to see a substitute, so we can either toy with them or be more casual with them, or maybe they'll just tell us to put our heads on our desks because they don't want to do any work either. But it's different with television. We don't want to see substitutes. But TV hosts are busy people and often have to do something else and can't be on their own show. Here are the five TV personalities that bum me out whenever I see they're filling in for the regular person:

1. Ann Curry (The Today Show). Why does she get on my nerves so much? She seems nice enough (as if we can tell exactly from a TV box several hundred miles away), but there's something abou ther personality. Is it the stumbling over her words? Is it the fact that when she fills in for Meredith Vieira (and before that, Katie Couric) it seems like she really tries to take over, trying to be the serious one to get things back on track when Matt and Al are having fun? She just always seems to be auditioning for some better gig, which isn't a bad thing I guess, but it's just so obvious and grating. I don't even like the way she stands.

When Jon mentioned that the night's guest was going to be Natalie Portman, the audience seemed really excited. She was here to promote her new movie, V for Vendetta, which, as Jon noted, is rarely seen in children's books. "V is for Vendetta! Billy carried out a 'vendetta' against all those that he thought had wronged him!"...  "V is for Vagina" is also surprisingly rare.