Proposing marriage live on TV: yea or nay?

Point taken.
But since I am under 40 years old...I will cast the look of shame to my elders.

Damn you Edward Murrow, to hell with you Dan Rather!

Honestly though, the reason I left TV the first time was because I felt the hard news thing wasn't my deal. After covering both sides of the RU-486 argument for a lead news story I felt this wasn't the career path I wanted and jumped to sports.

 

I do wonder, since TV news skews so much older, how many viewers recoiled at the sight of the reporter proposing to his girlfriend who was holding her (their?) young child.

 

Yes, we should all look to the newspaper to spare us from the fluff.



That's the art at the top of the main page of the website for my local paper. It includes a link to a photo gallery of the "best party photos of the weekend."

If I click on one of the top stories -- the autopsy report from a grisly murder -- it recommends links to other stories I'll like. They include "10 Celebrities Who Are the Same Age But Don’t Look It (Part. 2!)" and "Surprisingly Adorable Tammy Faye Reveals the Dark Side of Corporate Televangelism" and "Cat Cora pretty in mugshot photo for DUI arrest."

The local paper is equally useless to anyone who can read a paper.

 

But 40, or 30, or 20, or 10 years ago, the local paper wasn't useless, PC. Therein lies the difference.

 

Better to tape it in studio in case you need another take. #TheBachelor

 

True. But when people talk generically about "newspapers," they seem to be talking about the New York Times of around 1975. It bears little relation to any newspaper I've seen in at least 15 years.

 

if you read the comments, a couple of people. The guy's future wife is cute, though. I'd put a ring on it too.

 

Doesn't change the fact that the child is a bastard.








Oh, come on. You were thinking it.

 

We all know spnited's mantra, and it's still good advice.

Still, Spike's OP may have been only the third worst crossing of the line I've heard of. Second is an anchor in a Top 15 market in the Pacific Soutwest turning her family's adoption of a baby from China into a story.

Worst? Station that showed, as part of a weekend sports segment, highlights of their station's touch football game against a rival station.

 

That falls into the "look how fun-loving we are" type of BS that the consultants love, and whatever a TV consultant loves is gospel for the station that brought them in. The ABC affiliate I grew up with had a station basketball team that would play - and I use that term loosely - against other area groups in charity games. I used to work for a place that every Thanksgiving aired highlights of everyone working that day playing in a touch football game.

 

On-air divorces would be the kind of disaster I'd tune in for. Or do your own local version of Cheaters.

But, yeah, never got tired of hearing complain that the TV had all the happy news and how the reporters there "cared" about the community while the evil newspaper wrote "bad" news and was never around unless something bad was happening. (I blame the public: I get assigned a fluff piece about a Salvation Army worker playing guitar and singing carols in front of Walmart and no one gives a shit. I write about a murder/cop shooting/hostage situation, and it sells out across town the next day.)

Where I live, we have the daily paper and the TV station. I heard my small share of the "the newspaper doesn't care about the community because it doesn't do X." By that meaning, sending folks out to volunteer at Christmas for Toys for Tots or work the publicity booth at the county fair or any of that other shit. For one thing, I wasn't doing anything off the clock. I put in my 40 and went home. The TV folks were salaried, so the management could twist their arms a bit more.

I never wanted to be a "star" or "celebrity reporter." For one thing, I was on the crime/courts beat for the final two years. The fewer random people who recognized me sitting in the lobby of court, the better. You'd be amazed the shit you hear when people don't know you from the dogshit outside on the grass. Also, I didn't want some asshole with an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon accusation taking his newly-acquired notoriety out on me.