Originally posted by binky:
......I'm left wondering how many news reporters are just that entirely ignorant......
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Just about all of them.
About 15 years ago I worked with a CBS affiliate News department.
(I did a weekly 4-5 minute segment on the State business environment for them as a contract writer/producer and on-camera "talent"
{not that I actually had a lot of talent in that respect} for a year).
The only person there that knew anything about the subject that he dealt with was the sports reporter.... and sports was the ONLY thing that he knew anything about.
All the rest were just "talking heads" that really understood nothing. The news anchor was the daughter of the station owner, and while a nice lady and a good "reader" she knew nothing about anything beyond clothes styles and selecting a fine wine.
None of the news writers there knew much beyond putting words together- they would just edit whatever came off the news wires or repeat whatever someone told them in "Newsspeak". They were all pretty talented at what they did, but you couldn't have an intellectual discussion with one of them.
Same thing with the field reporters- they were all chosen for looks and the ability to speak succinctly and ask questions, and were never expected to actually understand anything about which they were reporting.
They did do good work under pressure though- It took me just about a full day to get my 4-5 minutes together, even with the help of a camera-man and an experienced assistant producer. everyone else each had to put together 5 - 10 segments every day, and some of them had to be put together minutes before broadcast.
I didn't know the people that ran the Chiron very well(that is the thing that superimposed text and did and other video effects) but they only ever did whatever the script told them to, or the producer if it was breaking news without a script.
And I imagine things are generally worse now with most news organizations. It is all about style over substance.