I’ll be on New England Cable News at some point this evening to discuss the legendary Natalie Jacobson’s decision to step aside as a news anchor at WCVB-TV (Channel 5).
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Jeez, this is truly the summer of discontent in the broadcasting world, isn’t it?Is ANYTHING going to be the same by the time Labor Day rolls around???? 🙂
TV news–local and national–is on a slippery slope to oblivion. These stations and networks, though, have a massively inflated sense of self to the point where they truly believe that shuffling anchors around or prettying up the set or ‘going HD’ will make a bit of difference. When we are bludgeoned with ‘BREAKING NEWS!’ every time a squirrel gets hit by a car, or bludgeoned even more by parades of car and furniture store commercials before we get the answer to the breathless question, ‘Will it stay DRY? I’ll have the answer NEXT!!!’, people tune out in droves. Video killed the Radio star, and now the Internet (and liberal bias) has killed TV news.
Dan,Dunno if you watch “Countdown,” or not, but Natalie was Olbermann’s No. 3 “top newsmaker.” A nice ode to from one classy and capable journalist to another. In an aside, I cringe whenever I read a post about Natalie and TV news as “dinosaurs,” especially when I sense they’ve been posted by some video game-addicted soul-patch sporting slacker who can’t find Mexico on the map through the constant haze of bong smoke. There — how does it feel to be the subject of an ad hominem attack you “TV News is dead” posters? Show a little respect for someone who accomplished something, and did so consistently for 35 years.
Good for Olbermann! What Jacobson represents will be missed — she’s always been a hardworking, capable anchor, but her heyday came at a time when WCVB’s newscast was considered perhaps the best in the country, and at a time when local-TV newscasts were better, meant more, and were watched by far more people than they are today.