One Reason I Left TV

It left me.

There are many reasons why I left, but a Newsbusters story this morning reminded of something that used to really bug me.

I used to anchor the morning news on two stations in Lubbock, Texas.  CBS13 from 5:30-6:00.  ABC28 from 6:00 – 7:00.  Back on CBS for news 7:00-8:00 and then weather cut-ins on CBS from 8:00-9:00.  Yeah, it was busy.

Occasionally, our producer would want some time off and some of those times, I would come in at Midnight and produce my own shows.  Part of that process is pulling down news stories (packages as they are called) from the various satellite feeds from the networks.  It used to bug me to no end how hard it was to find down the middle reporting.  I trusted many of our local reporters to give an honest look at both sides more than I did the supposed leaders of our industry!

Being a watcher of the news these days, and also an unapologetic conservative reporter in the “new media,” I can tell you that yes, it has gotten worse.  It seems like when the networks crowned Barack Obama as President the veil was lifted.  Network news isn’t unbiased reporting any more, rather it’s reporting with a liberal slant in much the same way that this blog and my videos are reporting with a conservative one.  I don’t mind so much that ABCBSNBC are liberal, except they try to pretend that they are fair!

So here’s the story from Newsbusters.  Seems the by a margin of 12:1, ABC, CBS and NBC have been reporting negatively on the new immigration law in Arizona.  No kidding (sarcasm).  Translation?  They are lying to the American people.  Propaganda even.  No wonder their ratings are down.  Americans are around 60% in favor of this law, and that’s even while they are bombarded by lies!  Honest reporting on the facts of the bill might even put a damper on some of the violent protests against the bill.  It couldn’t hurt anyway.  Certainly good journalism requires telling the truth.  Right?

Thank God that the term “media” is plural.  There are all sides being discussed on various mediums.  The TV networks used to do a better job of balancing themselves out.  Now we consumers of news have to turn to a variety of sources.

I don’t miss being on TV so much… well, maybe weather anchoring.  Maybe that’s why I started TucsonWeather.us.  See ya there!

Texassize Weather

Keith Monday tells me this picture is 1999ish.  That fits about right.  This is the combined ABC28 and CBS13 (Texassize) weather team at the time.  Good times!

Matt Hines, Matt Miller, Keith Monday, Ron Roberts, Mike Shaw and David Young.  There are a few folks here I don’t remember their names.  My apologies.  I’m not good with names.  I really need to work on that.