OLBERMANN COMPLAINS ABOUT CURRENT TV; CONSERVATIVES AGREE

For once, conservatives appear to be agreeing with the liberal commentator Keith Olbermann. Olbermann reportedly had been complaining about the lack of funding by Current TV for coverage of the Iowa caucus vote on Tuesday. On Wednesday he told the Hollywood Reporter that he had decided not to participate in Current’s coverage because “I was [...]

LET THE TV PRIMARY COVERAGE BEGIN

To the relief of everyone connected with TV coverage of Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, the polls turned out to be right on the mark. Political pollsters, who have sometimes proved to be embarrassingly off-target in recent elections, had predicted a very tight race between Mitt Romney, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. No one had realized how [...]

SO WHAT’S OLBERMANN’S CURRENT STATUS?

Speculation has arisen that Keith Olbermann is once again battling his bosses, in this case, the ownership and management of his current cable outlet Current TV. The New York Times is reporting that Olbermann will not be anchoring the channel’s coverage of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary in January but will be [...]

WEINER CAPTURES 33 PERCENT OF CABLE NEWS’S TIME

Cable news networks devoted 33 percent of their time last week to the sexting scandal involving Congressman Anthony Weiner. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the broadcast network television newscasts devoted 14 percent of their time to the scandal, slightly above online news websites, which nevertheless amounted to 14 percent of their news [...]

TSUNAMI SWEEPS OVER TV

Japan’s NHK network has provided gripping coverage of the earthquake and tsunami that struck the country early on (Friday). Throughout the day, NHK tracked the devastating progress of the deluge, showing the massive tidal wave carrying boats onto farmlands, sweeping up homes and cars — and people — and carrying them away. The television network [...]

NETWORKS TURN TO AL-JAZEERA FOR EGYPT NEWS

U.S. television broadcast news operations and cable news networks, which have drastically curtailed or closed down their overseas bureaus, have been forced to depend on al-Jazeera for coverage of the Tunisian and Egyptian protests. Ironically, al-Jazeera’s own Arabic and English networks have effectively been banned by cable operators in the U.S. But its websites have [...]