Althouse: "It's just news. It's just news."

January 28, 2010

"It's just news. It's just news."

(Via Boing Boing.)

22 comments:

Mark O said...: No gratuitous sex? No "whoa," which everyone must assume is the involuntary exclamation uttered by those viewing a large, rather than an extremely small, appendage?

This is good.; 1/28/10, 6:28 PM
Bob_R said...: So what do they do in the rest of the four years at j-school?; 1/28/10, 6:30 PM
rhhardin said...: Toyota owner in the street yesterday, on Toyota shutting down:

It's kind of surprising, because Toyota is really popular and really famous in terms of their dependency.; 1/28/10, 6:32 PM
Robt C said...: This is absolutely perfect. Sums up network news to a "T"; 1/28/10, 6:35 PM
themightypuck said...: Maybe it's the Englishness but this reminds me of Mitchell and Webb.; 1/28/10, 6:48 PM
Shanna said...: Cute! This is why I can't stand to watch the news on television.; 1/28/10, 6:50 PM
ricpic said...: Nothing happens in the street. All the real action is in the executive suite which reporters are barred from entering.; 1/28/10, 6:55 PM
Peter Hoh said...: I saw this on the Atlantic Wire, paired with How to write an incendiary blog post.; 1/28/10, 7:16 PM
Wince said...: Now that was funny. It's like he ripped the words right out of Morley Safer's mouth. Or, more to the point, stole his formula.

It starts here, with a lackluster establishing shot of a significant location.

Next, a walky-talkly preamble from the auteur, pacing steadily towards the lens, punctuating every other sentence with a hand gesture, and ignoring all the prigs milling around him, like he's gliding through the fucking matrix, before coming to a halt and posing a question: What comes next?

Very funny and apt.; 1/28/10, 7:17 PM
Synova said...: That was fabulous.

Unintentionally extra fabulous for the left-pondian audience as it unconsciously includes the right-pondian fabulous accent that always makes news seem far more significant.; 1/28/10, 7:18 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: Brilliant.

And to think I went to J-school for four years (er, okay it was five) when I all had to do was watch a damned three minute tape.; 1/28/10, 7:33 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: So what do they do in the rest of the four years at j-school?

Same thing as everybody else. Get drunk and get laid.

Ahh, higher education.; 1/28/10, 7:37 PM
Anonymous said...: "... like he's gliding through the fucking Matrix."

Classic.; 1/28/10, 7:58 PM
Anonymous said...: And to think I went to J-school for four years (er, okay it was five) when I all had to do was watch a damned three minute tape.

J-School? What for?

The producer does all the reporting and writing (they're the ones who need J-school).

All you have to do as the on-air talent is learn how to glide through the fucking matrix reading shit somebody else wrote and nailing the hand gestures.

Then it's off to Barney's to get fitted for your free $5,000 suit ... courtesy of Barney's.; 1/28/10, 8:03 PM
The Crack Emcee said...: Yes, By Jove, I Think He's Got It!; 1/28/10, 8:05 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: The producer does all the reporting and writing (they're the ones who need J-school).

Well, I was a print reporter.

The real thing.

Terrible at it. I would cover a city council meeting and race back to the newsroom and write a 20,000 word piece on what they did.

Nobody wants to read 20,000 words on a city council meeting. Not even the councilmen.; 1/28/10, 8:07 PM
Moose said...: ...and made all the more deep and beleivable by being narrated by a man with an English accent.

Spot on...; 1/28/10, 8:24 PM
John Burgess said...: Moose has it almost right...

Spot. On.

(needed the full stops)

WV: nomsegge: TV talk for a segue shot that includes the subject both before and after the transition.; 1/28/10, 8:42 PM
Big Mike said...: @Moose, you said it all.; 1/28/10, 9:07 PM
Anonymous said...: Brilliant. I have long argued that a news station that simply reported facts and showed images but had utterly faceless narrators would be highly successful.

The way the stories would be created would be to throw a lefty and a righty together in a room and give them a hard deadline, then fire them if they don't meet it.; 1/28/10, 11:21 PM
Lynne said...: "Terrible at it. I would cover a city council meeting and race back to the newsroom and write a 20,000 word piece on what they did.

Nobody wants to read 20,000 words on a city council meeting. Not even the councilmen."

My sympathies, SMGalbraith. I'm a truly rotten blogger for the very same reason.

At least you finished J school. I dropped out.; 1/29/10, 6:27 AM
k said...: What else do they do at J-school? My colleagues spent quite a bit of time eating fries, drinking beer, and discussing whether their real names were adequate for news-anchorship, or if they needed to come up with a nom de screen.

One guy had a whole theory about your first name had to be one syllable, and your last name had to be two (or vice versa - I forget). Of course, every time he stated his "principle," someone else could reel off five or six current network personalities whose names violated his rule. Idiots.

WV: lexceden = giving in to the law.; 1/29/10, 8:38 AM