wbur.org
support wbur today!
Listen to this story
The Last Great TV News War
photo

When it comes to network TV news, we are not in Kansas anymore. We’re far from the high, proud heyday. This weekend, NBC News anchor Brian Williams will host Saturday Night Live. We wonder if Walter Cronkite will be watching.

For a solid string of decades, the networks’ evening news was the glamorous national campfire, where Americans gathered everyday to get the news. Now, we’re all over the place — from You Tube to Colbert. But the Big Three are still battling in their shrinking pond.

This hour, On Point: Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz on the last great television news war.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Howard Kurtz, media reporter for The Washington Post and host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” his new book is “Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War.”

Douglas Rushkoff, lecturer on technology, media, and popular culture at New York University and author of “Get Back in the Box: Innovation From the Inside Out” and “Coercion: Why We Listen to What ‘They’ Say.”

 

Tags: , ,

 
 

Comments are closed.

Recent Shows
Poker: America’s Game
Thursday, November 19, 2009 image

Poker and American history. How the game of presidents, cowboys, gangsters, and online gamblers helped shape America.

Comments [10]
 
Google vs. Murdoch
Thursday, November 19, 2009 image

Rupert Murdoch wants to block the search giant from scooping free content from his newspapers. We’ll look at the staredown.

Comments [138]
On Point Blog
Michael Wolff and Jeff Jarvis on Murdoch v. Google

We had a rousing discussion about Google vs. Murdoch, and what it says about the whole future of news, with Michael Wolff, Jeff Jarvis, and Steven Brill. Here’s what Wolff and Jarvis had to say about the delusions of both Murdoch and Google.

More » | Comments [21]
 
Video: Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Last week, host Tom Ashbrook was on stage with Google CEO Eric Schmidt, asking him about some of the biggest technology and business issues of our time.
It was part of an MIT event held on Thursday, Nov. 5, to commemorate computer science professor Michael Hammer, who died last year. Here’s video of the full interview, courtesy of WBUR.org:

Among other things, Schmidt said the possibilities [...]

More » | Comments [4]
 
California, here we come! And we need your questions!

On Point is headed west!
No, no. Not for good. Only for one show. But it’s a very special show!  The NPR station in Thousand Oaks, California – KCLU – is celebrating their 15th anniversary. We’re lucky to have been on their airwaves for nearly seven years, and they invited us out west to host a live [...]

More » | Comments [10]