More questions than answers on the info highway

    If I don't record the news on TV, I can't watch it.
    They should be required to change the name of the broadcast from "The Evening News" to "The Evening Tease."
     "Tease" is a technical term. It's what the industry calls the end of the segment before the commercial break:  "Who spanked the President? We'll tell you right after the break."
     This tease is a lie. They almost always present two more stories, each four sentences long, 10 words each, before the next break, but before they leave you with the commercial, they say, "We'll find out who spanked the President right after this."
     I have a theory about this. News departments have not made as much progress over the past 50 years as the advertising and marketing departments, so 15 minutes of news -- the standard local offering in 1955 -- is all you really get in an hour-long newscast. But they can sell a lot of advertising to run in that hour, so that's why you have so many breaks. And the tease keeps you around for the commercials.
     Take weather, for instance. I watch the local news mostly for the weather, but if you notice, you get the weather in bits and pieces. First, they tell you what the weather was like today -- with video, of course. If there is no video to go along with the evening news, it did not happen. Or at least it's not going to be on the broadcast. They used to have a graphic to put up on the screen when they had a story but no video, but that's apparently considered bush league today. Better to ignore a story than to run it without video.
     Anyway, after a few video-supported stories, the anchors -- it takes two to do the  job than one person used to be able to handle -- say, "Will we have a tornado tomorrow? We'll be back with the forecast after this."
     But they may have four more commercials before you see the weather person again, and three promos bragging that the station has three or four meterologists, which I think is supposed to impress us because a meteorologist is a professional weather person.
     If I were a professional meteorologist weather person instead of just a weather personality, I think I'd be embarrassed to being reduced to spreading five minutes of information out over an hour, but that's why nobody ever asked me to be a TV personality.
     Oh, I was asked to be a news director once, but I had to quit the job over a disagreement on how to do a "live, on-location story on the local blizzard."
     It was actually just a snow, but the station manager and the production people wanted to milk it. They valued camera equipment more than people, so they insisted on calling in a reporter to stand on the parking lot, "live, somewhere on location in Carroll County" while the camera and operator stayed in the garage, with the garage door open.
     This, apparently, is how you get a BS degree in TV production, video news, and communicatons management. Me, I ain't got no BS with me.
     Who spanked the president? Damned if I know; I switched to PBS.