So I am clicking through the TV channels hoping to watch the news. I click through 10 or so channels and turn the TV off, annoyed. This never seems to happen when LOST is on. LOST actually makes TV better.
What is it that’s bugging me? The list is lengthy so I’ll stick with my top gripe. It seems to me that everything is referred to as BREAKING NEWS, even when BREAKING NEWS has a subhead that reads “Gourmet Meals on a Budget”. Is this really news that deserves a bold, bright red, ALL CAPS level of attention?
Imagine being able to swap out some of the content that we’ve all learned over time to ignore for something intriguing. Content that made it onto the screen because the masses, not the networks, decided it should. Imagine being a participant beyond voting for American Idol contestants with your phone.
Mike Elgan of Datamation had these suggestions for How Social Media Can Save TV News:

1. Instead of using “tickers” and peripheral space to promote programs and other stale “news,” they should instead turn this over to live running commentary.
2. Hire a small team to monitor Twitter and other social media sites 24/7 looking for breaking news, which always appears there first.
3. Fire all opinion-show anchors.
4. Go ahead and cover your career-making, inside-the-beltway stories, but spend at least half the show summarizing a very large number of stories that are getting traction on social media.
5. Never let news anchors choose viewer comments.

This probably wouldn’t help much with my BREAKING NEWS gripe but might improve everything that surrounds it.
Jason Randall