You know the story about the drunk looking for his car keys at night, don't you? He's stumbling under a lamppost looking about when a police officer walks up. The cop naturally asks the drunk what's he doing. After the drunk tells him, the policeman then asks why he hasn't found them yet. The drunk replies that the keys were dropped a couple of blocks away but the light was better under the lamppost
Such is the case with network news and here's the most recent example.
Martin Fletcher, the Tel Aviv Bureau Chief for NBC News, reports that Palestinian gunmen are threatening to kill journalists who film the ongoing war between Fatah and Hamas. And in the TV biz, no dramatic film coverage (e.g., gun battles, dead bodies, etc.) usually means no story. So the viewer gets shortchanged as if this civil war isn't happening.
But NBC News has airtime to fill on its Today and Dateline programs, so viewers like you and me get to watch this nonsense.
I'll give NBC credit for permitting Fletcher to report on the shortcomings of the Big Media . Yet in the end, when it comes to TV news, I'm just as dissatisfied as the drunk looking for his lost keys.
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