Article: This Mornings "Early Show"

Why don’t the major television stations give us the news coming out of Iraq. Today I turned on “The Early Show” and got a 5-second blurb about Al-Sadr pulling his cabinet ministers from the Maliki government. Sorry folks, but it would be nice if I could get a little back ground on why where when and how, or did those principles of good journalism fall by the wayside? I got a pretty nice collage of ideas of why Prince William might have broken up with his “middle class” girlfriend, they spend awhile on that one, but nothing of any substance about Al-Sadr’s decision.

C’mon guys, you can do it! If you’ve forgotten the name of the game, it’s called NEWS. That’s what most people want to hear when they turn on a NEWS station. The stuff you guys are reporting on used to be called “Filler and fluff”, that was to take up some time when their wasn’t hard NEWS. Somehow you people have gotten a bit confused. You are starting to believe that you are there to give us “filler and fluff”. I just wanted to write this to let you know that you have inadvertently gone in the wrong direction.

Maybe you think you are “entertaining” us. If you believe that what you do is “entertainment” then kindly take off the label “NEWS” from the format. I’m not just complaining for myself, I’m complaining for all of the people that watch your shows and believe that they are getting the NEWS. This could make them sound very idiotic at the next get together with friends or colleagues. While other people are talking about Iraq and things that are happening in the world, you’re viewers will be talking about Prince William and Kate Middleton. That would leave then looking very foolish, wouldn’t you agree? By the way, if they would look foolish, that would make you an accessory to foolishness?

I have to give you some credit. You did the weather very nicely, and you insinuated that Gonzales was going to testify today and save his job, but that really didn’t go into how he was going to testify and whether or not he would be under oath. You left those parts out. Frankly, I’m very disappointed in you. Either get it together or just drop the NEWS section of the show. You really don’t do the word justice. Then again, anyone looking for real news on television probably would never know if they were getting real news or not.