Preparing for an early legal ethics program for Virginia CLE, I made the mistake of tuning in to Headline News’ morning show hosted by chirpy eye-candy Robin Meade. Breathlessly, she announced that an amazing baseball game had occurred last night in Seattle that ended at 4 AM! What followed was a three-minute routine with Robin’s sports guy, who pattered on about how long the game was, how the Beatles sang the National Anthem, how FDR threw out the first ball, showing his high school yearbook photo to show what he looked like when the game started, on and on. None of this was funny, of course, because it made no sense: the fact that the game lasted a long time didn’t send the beginning of the game back in time. The CNN editors somehow thought this was so hilarious that it justified taking up the time that Headline News could have devoted to actual news of substance, which was once the point of the channel, a compressed summary of breaking stories. That was the least of the problems with the segment, however:
- The 18-inning game was about 5 hours long, which is noteworthy but hardly remarkable. It ended at 1 AM, however, not 4 AM. The time is measured in the time zone in which a game takes place, not whatever time zone the copywriters think will make it sound longer.
- The sports guy announced the final score as 2-1. It was not. The score was 4-2. After an extended routine about how amazing and long the not-very-amazing and not especially long game was, the CNN team was obligated to at least get the key fact right: the score.
- That’s not all. Perhaps in homage to the late George Carlin, who in his pre-hippie days used to do a sportscaster routine in which he said, “And now last night’s baseball scores: 4-3, 8-1, and in a real squeaker, 2-1!” , neither Robin nor her colleague ever revealed who won the game. (The Baltimore Orioles won.)
So, in summary, Headline News took almost three minutes to highlight a baseball game in order to make lame jokes, then failed to accurately inform the audience of the game’s score or winning team. The game, by the way, was an important one, as it allowed the Orioles to tie the New York Yankees for first place in the American League East.
This is, in a nutshell, the state of broadcast news today: sloppy, self-indulgent, unprofessional, incompetent, and untrustworthy. If they can’t give the results of a baseball game accurately, why in the world would we trust their coverage of anything?
______________________
Ethics Alarms 
Ha! And before that was the purpose of Headline News that was the purpose of CNN. I guess it’s time to spin out another channel dedicated to actual news for a couple of years before it, too, devolves into this dreck.
Good post, I think you highlight a serious problem with their due diligence and competence. But I would take exception to this bit:
The CNN editors somehow thought this was so hilarious that it justified taking up the time that Headline News could have devoted to actual news of substance, which was once the point of the channel, a compressed summary of breaking stories.
People have criticized you for focusing on things that weren’t of importance to the world and you’ve defended yourself. I think a few of those defenses might apply to Headline News in this case. They run programming 24 hours a day and your complaint that a 3 minute comedy skit detracts from the other 23 hours 57 minutes.
The rest of your article you are on point though.
This is a blog—I have no duty to the public other than to be honest, competent and do the best job I can. Journalists do have duties to the public, and HLN is supposed to fill each hour with an accurtate summary of what’s going on in the world, not bad comedy routines with no news value whatsoever. Since I never omit a serious post in order to post a more frivolous one, and have an open ended time frame, it’s just a bad analogy. HLN has about 50 minutes or less of non-commercial time per hour; 3 minutes is 6 per cent of that. (They ran the story again for a few hours, remembering to get the winning team in, I’d hope. That’s 6% devoted to nothing as opposed to news that might actually be valuable.
“The 18-inning game was about 5 hours long, which is noteworthy but hardly remarkable. It ended at 1 AM, however, not 4 AM. The time is measured in the time zone in which a game takes place, not whatever time zone the copywriters think will make it sound longer.”
Except here in the DC / Baltimore area it ended for those who were watching at 4:00 AM. Now that should only be reported that way on the local stations.
They covered this game in the morning ESPN radio show, both because of its length and because of its importance to the pennant races. The ESPN reporters, however, were able to get the facts correct.
In addition, though, they related a couple of nuggets that were actually related to either the game or the teams, to wit: The Orioles have now won 14 straight extra innings game, a streak not accomplished since 1949.
Also, one of the ESPN guys recalled his early days at ESPN, when the network was not a 24 hour juggernaut as it is today. Back then, apparently they signed off when the last baseball game was completed. So in a situation such as this, he would have to be on the air for an extra 2 or 3 hours, checking in on the game periodically and spending the rest of that time trying to scrape up enough material to fill the airwaves. One can only imagine.