Blitzed out

[newsguyatl]

slate's view of cnn's situation room -- hilarious!

by the way, does anyone have a link to the daily show this article references? i would LOVE to see it!

http://www.slate.com/id/2124416/

Blitzed Out
CNN's Situation Room is live! It's now! It's ... three hours long.
By Dana Stevens
Posted Thursday, Aug. 11, 2005, at 4:04 PM PT


CNN's new afternoon news show The Situation Room (not to be confused with MSNBC's The Situation With Tucker Carlson, which has just been banished to the attic of an 11 p.m. time slot) is the latest example of what CNN President Jonathan Klein describes as his network's "newfound dedication to being the newsy alternative." In a landscape of nearly indistinguishable cable yammerfests, The Situation Room's main claim to innovation is twofold: It's live, and it's three hours long. This unusual combination means that the show manages to be at once an impressive technical achievement and a colossal bore.

Besides being very, very live and very, very long, the most notable thing about The Situation Room (weekdays 3 to 6 p.m. ET) is its anxiety to define itself as a different kind of news show. In the words of Jon Stewart on last night's Daily Show, The Situation Room is "Wolf Blitzer's show, but with giant screens. Same old s**t." The show's quintessential visual: Blitzer standing in front of a bank of long, narrow screens, each showing a live newsfeed from a just-reported or upcoming story. There's a lot of Terminator-style graphics pulsating around the edges of the screens, as digital clocks tick off the exact time in different parts of the world. In Vienna, Austria, it's 11:03:01 a.m.! In Crawford, Texas, it's 2:03:25 p.m.! Stuff is happening in different time zones, and we here in The Situation Room plan to glancingly refer to at least some of it!

..more

[newsguyatl]

1. kick

[johnfunk]

2. "The Situation Room?" It's more like "The Rubber Room"!

Yes, I know I said it in another thread, but this is just insane on CNN's part. They must've spent enough on Avid workstations and plasma screens to pay for half a dozen actual journalists for a few years! Yep, that Rubber Room is sure pimped!

The only two good things about "The Situation Room": no more Bob Novak (thank Dobbs), and those two hot Vassar chicks who cover the blogs.

[Eric J in MN]

7. Why are you crediting Lou Dobbs with the lack of Robert Novak on CNN? nt

nt

[johnfunk]

8. Bob Dobbs, not Lou

That's JR "Bob" Dobbs, slacker deity, on the right.

I use the term "thank Dobbs" in place of "thank God," "thank Jehovah," "thank Krishna," "thank Bush," etc. etc. etc.

[eleny]

3. Reminds me of that episode of Taxi....

The one where Christopher Lloyd's character, Jim Ignatowski, took his savings and bought about 100 televisions to create a television wall.

[neuvocat]

4. CNN is crap.

I could care less about whatever "content" they pump out day after day after day.

[Lex]

5. Thanks for the link and snip of the article.

I don't even know how it got on the air. It just *sounds* boring and contrived as hell.

Did you see the thread here yesterday where a DU'er was watching and Blitzer tried to get Clinton to say something he didn't want to necessarily say and Clinton said "You're just trying make news" and Blitzer says "I'm a newsman, that's what I do--make news."

Jeez. Really? I thought newsmen were supposed to REPORT the news and avoid making it themselves!

I can't STAND Leslie Blitzer. :mad:

[newsguyatl]

6. his middle name is actually

ignacious.

i kid you not.

[newsguyatl]

9. kickers