Showing posts with label ann curry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ann curry. Show all posts

What a Thursday!

Saturday, July 7, 2012
[NOTE: This post was supposed to be completed earlier in the week but I contracted a 'summer cold' that has put me off to pretty much anything doing with writing since Monday. I've made the appropriate changes to reflect the delay.] 

Starting with Ann Curry's goodbye early in the morning and going late into the late afternoon hours with the House contempt vote, June 28th was a remarkable media day

If you are a financial (or advanced political) wonk, you might know what the investing term 'quadruple witching day' means and how it relates to specific occurrences every fiscal quarter when contracts for stock options, stock index options, stock index futures, and single stock futures expire on exchanges all around the world.  If I can borrow this enchanting phrase and loosely apply it to the media,  four remarkable and/or historic events occupied a good segment of American television news outlets' available air time on June 28th and I was able to directly witness three of them (one happened when I was at work but I could not break away to our organization's cafeteria to view on its bank of television monitors).  Two were directly related to the news media while the other two relied on those elements to transmit images and information from the nation's capital to all corners of the country (as well as to the wider world).

Morning News Review - 'Today'

Saturday, June 23, 2012
[NOTE: this is the first of a five-part series critiquing morning news offerings from US broadcast and cable news providers.  In these pieces, I will provide my take on the composition, the hosts, the 'aesthetics', and any overt/covert 'messaging' that might be present and meant to attract your attention at the breakfast table.]


Today--the 'granddaddy' of morning television

SHOWToday
NETWORK/LOCAL AFFILIATE (IF APPLICABLE): NBC/WDTN, Dayton, OH
DATE/TIMES:  11 June 2012/0700-0730
YEAR STARTED: 1952
LOCATION: NBC Studios, New York, NY
HOSTS: Matt Lauer (co-anchor), Ann Curry (co-anchor), Natalie Morales (news), Al Roker (weather) [MSNBC's Willie Geist filled in for Lauer on this edition]
CORRESPONDENTS: Charles Hadlock (Bellvue, CO), Chuck Todd (White House), Michael Isikoff (Bellefonte, PA); Peter Alexander (Washington, DC)
GUESTS: Meghan McCain, Christopher Hayes (both in studio)

FLOW: the show started promptly at 7AM with a different three-note 'NBC' theme than I am used to hearing.  Curry and Geist traded story 'teasers' for upcoming stories (Colorado wildfires, US Commerce secretary John Bryson's hit-and-run accidents in California, Lady Gaga getting hit in the head with a pole during a concert appearance in New Zealand, an update on Mary Kennedy's recent suicide, and the 'reboot' of the Dallas series on TNT) with B-roll footage accompaniment.  The show's familiar theme music (composed by John Williams) along with the announcer voice-over and outside footage of Rockefeller Center brought this introductory segment to a close.