i have this great idea for a new show

early yesterday morning, it occurred to me that i have yet to jump on the reality/home video tv ride to riches. i don't watch reality tv shows, although i have watched a couple of episodes of 'wipeout', found myself laughing out loud a couple of times and mostly groaning or silent for the balance of the time. i have to admit that there are also some in the gardens who will tune into america's funniest home videos or wackiest car chases--but only when there is no football, hockey, baseball, racing, movie, tennis, golf, billiards, world championship of poker, cricket match, weather channel, hi-def nature show, or nova to watch instead.

i think i have come up with a great idea for a new show: america's most outrageous media coverage!!! (and yes, it will require at least three exclamation marks, so i hope those three marks don't weary you to much, dear readers.)

the basic concept of the show will be to show how crazy the media can be. it will include anything that is reported as news, so that means we can submit ideas from newspapers, network tv, local tv, the news authority radio station, and lest we miss out on some of the most outrageous coverage, of course, fox tv, msnbc, and cnn. oh, and we can, if we must, include npr.

this is the short list of areas we can cover that i've thought of so far:

1. outrageous coverage of weather-related events--think geraldo standing ten feet from a levee in new orleans that could breach at any moment, or any number of reporters who are each trying to get the closest to being blown away by a tornado or hurricane. or how about the weather guy on the local station who always refers to lightning as 'killer lightning'. idiot. maybe this segment could evolve into a competition between annoying or dense reporters that requires reporter participation in ACTUAL! WEATHER! CRISES!!! not that i want anybody to get killed, but maybe if the show goes big enough, the reporters would all want to be on and some of them might need some time off occasionally...you know, to participate, not necessarily to recover...

2. a segment for local coverage--think ksl or the deseret news and their plentiful coverage of the predominant religion in the area. does this happen with baptists in the south or catholics in boston or jews in new york? skinheads in northern idaho? this segment could also include the non-news stories that are the majority of stories on the local news--pieces that are really a five-minute long free ad for a local business--that may or may not be locally owned. and there are also the fluff pieces that should be on a separate show--maybe it could be called, 'local fluff, no news.'

3. a segment for ads for local tv news and radio--if i hear those ksl ads, 'by the time you get to work, you pretty much know what's happening,' and 'ksl tells me all i need to know' and 'ksl is so informative', i'm going to scream. oh wait, i've already done that. well, if i ever run into those actual fans of ksl, i'll simply have to scream at them. and another thing, how about the name they call themselves, 'THE NEWS AUTHORITY'--give me a break. you know, if somebody wanted to say that ksl news was concise, i could let that slide because almost all of their stories are a headline and two sentences. except for the carol mikita church pieces and the headline stories about a bad accident or a kid who's been injured and then they can't stop showing the video over and over of the injured kid (BREAKING NEWS!!!) and the person who is alleged to have caused the injury, who will be convicted by ksl way before any judge gets involved. and don't forget deep-voiced guy who announces breaking news in a teaser that he recorded the day before. seriously, breaking news should be no more that an hour old. if you ask me. or if this is my blog.

4. if we needed a bit of filler, there could be a segment about funny headlines, reporters who can't seem to read the teleprompter, and lousy teasers that take more time then they devote to the story.

5. let's not forget the folks on fox and cnn. you know, the fair and balanced, no bias just news, (or whatever that clever line is from cnn) stations. sad to say, but there are far too many americans who totally believe whatever they hear from bill o'reilly or wolf blitzer. first of all, these guys are not newsmen. they are moneymakers. it might be fun to have a segment of alternating clips from both sides that would show clearly the biased, not fair or balanced blahblah they air at every opportunity.

6. one more segment could be about the stories that get print or air time versus the stories that are apparently too deep/messy/complicated/ugly for the average viewer/listener to understand, so we are protected from them by our dad, the guy who decides what gets aired.

7. that's all i can think of for now--besides the post is way past getting long--but if you can think of additional segments, please please share them. we can all use something besides the daily barrage of crap that passes as news.