Future News: Networks & Newspapers To Drop Coverage Of Most Everything
Michael J. Matheron, January 3, 2018
In a joint news conference from pot-infused Colorado all major, minor, wannabe, and megaphone networks announced today they would cease reporting a vast number of events because they are so common that “everybody does it.” In their communique to the American public, they explained “many topics now reported happen all the time, like clockwork, and the American people don’t care about them.” For instance,
“Weather is a prime example. We always have weather, just step outside. People, the ordinary ones, confine their interest in weather to an area of approximately ten miles radius from their present position. Americans need only look out their windows to determine the weather, and they know it. If some say, ‘We must have weather reports, how else can we plan?’ We answer that study after study indicates that weather occurs all the time, and often, too, weather forecasts prove radically incorrect. Poll after poll tells us that Americans do not value incorrect weather reports since they happen all the time, and every news outlet does it repeatedly. There’s no ‘news’ there.”
Martina Pavlokova, the newly appointed United States Czar of Media, explained that the “ah hah!” moment accompanied the Russiagate scandal.
“Yes, we listened very closely to administration spokespersons like Kellyanne Conway, Yakov Smirnoff, Vladimir Putin, and Sebastian Gorka who pointed out quite forcefully that Donald Trump Jr.’s so-called ‘meeting’ to collect dirt on Hillary Clinton from a so-called representative of an adversarial foreign government occurs all the time across the political spectrum. It’s called opposition research. Everyone does it. Something everyone does all the time is not news. Such collaboration with a foreign power to subvert our basic national principles may very well be a major criminal offense, but it’s nothing new. Crime, in general, occurs all the time. All crime, from armed robbery to espionage to murder, is an everyday thing. Who doesn’t already know that? Again: It’s not new, so it’s not news.”
What is “real” news? She continued,
“If the ancient island called Ireland ripped loose from its geological framework and sailed to Polynesia that would merit coverage.
Fit to print
It’s an event that does not occur very often and, yes, we would report a ‘black swan’ story like that, although not for long because boring geologists do not score well with our viewers and consequently, with our advertisers. So, we’d have to determine whether Ireland’s new global position would generate enough revenue for us to feature it.”
In like vein, networks unanimously decided to cease coverage of crime of all kinds. Nothing new. Happens all the time. Who cares? For example, despite the constant comings and goings of fully uniformed Russian military officers, ballerinas, and borscht salesmen to Trump Tower and the White House, administration surrogates convinced media executives that democrats do it, populists do it, school boards do it . . . you get the gist. Again, not really “news,” in the classic sense.
What will networks cover? Anything that is completely unprecedented, like the hypothetical above where Ireland skedaddles to the South Pacific. Those events are – by network definition – absolutely unique, and therefore, unlikely. So, executives expect news coverage will decline on a weekly basis to approximately fifteen minutes of broadcast time, and six pages of newsprint, perhaps less. They will offer more sitcoms and zombie dramas to populate the airtime once greedily captured by news programs. This reporter calls that the upside!
