Just Sayin'...

I got home tonight in time to catch the last 10 minutes of the new and improved FoxReport with Shepard Smith.

Now, before I go any further, regular readers of this blog (if there are any of you LOL) and anyone who knows me personally, all know that I do indeed love Shepard Smith. I feel he's the best anchorman out there today, and one of the finest field reporters in the game today. He's also not afraid to laugh at himself and crack a joke, even if it's not in the most appropriate spot.

OK, disclaimer in place, I now can proceed.

I flipped on FNC just in time to see a report from the Palestra.com, a college news website that seems to have caught
Shepard's fancy. Apparently, tomorrow is a big game for Ohio State University's football team and the students were celebrating by tossing themselves into a body of water...in 40 degree temperatures. College kids usually do crazy things like this...at least they did back in the day when I was in school. But...is this news?

The next segment dealt with Vegas...David Copperfield's first show since the rape allegations, and OJ Simpson. The ever classy Trace Gallagher was in Vegas, reporting on Copperfield. Then Shepard launched into a story about OJ and his "posse"...detailing the differences between and "entourage" and a "posse" in a segment called "Just Sayin'", with a graphic of what looked to be a silouhette of Shepard, shrugging.

OK, back it up there, Smith. Aren't you the man who, while doing press to promote the changes being made to FoxReport, said how you were getting rid of the teases and what not to bring MORE news to the people? In fact, I am looking at an interview you gave to TV Guide online this past August about just such a thing.

And here is a quote from that interview...

"We have to do more news. We've already given up the "coming up" teasing that we were known for in the early days. We've taken all of the time and put it into content. We did that because viewers said that's what they wanted. Viewers have said, "Stop telling me for 45 seconds what you're going to do in the next four minutes." So we have. We're not going to do more crap. We're not going to do more titillating [stories], Hollywood-movie reviews and jokes. We're going to do less of that. There are other places that do that better than we do. I don't make any apologies for the way we've done it in the past. There was an atmosphere where it was acceptable because people didn't have so much of it. We need to do news."

Things called "The Daily Britney" and "Just Sayin'" and items about college kids getting pumped for a big game from Palestra.com aren't "news"...at least not by the definition that I know news as. They may be interesting, curious, entertaining and maybe even funny. But they are not news.

Personally, I don't care what is used to fill a newscast. Just don't promise me more news and deliver more gossip.


I'm just sayin'...

;)

News At The Speed of....Wow...

So today is the 11th anniversary of FoxNews. Congratulations to FoxNews!!

Now, since I don't want to start "cookie~gate, part deux", let me preface this by saying that my preferred news channel is indeed FoxNews and that my preferred anchorman is Shepard Smith. How can he not be? He doesn't take himself too seriously. He does, however, take his job seriously. He's not afraid to bear his soul while reporting...and he's not afraid to make himself the butt of his own joke. If I could apply a word to him, it would be "adorable"...something I'd be hard pressed to apply to any other anchor man (with the exception of Anderson Cooper...but I just find Coop adorable~it has nothing to do with his acumen when reporting the news. Shep Smith, on the other hand, is the whole package)

That said, I have to say this much: I am having a very hard time adjusting to the new set on the FoxReport. Yes, I know that it was time for a change, and I know that it's a beautiful state of the art studio, designed to bring us news at, well, at the speed of live.

I know this.

But I am just finding it busy and hard to concentrate on what's being said. I find myself watching a screen on Shepard's left or the little spinning things in the lower third or I'm looking around the screen when the little digital noise that's made when the lower third changes comes on.

I just can't quite adjust to it.

I know it's only been two weeks, but when I got home Friday night and found that Trace Gallagher was sitting in for Shepard (Yankee road game? LOL) I almost felt relieved and shut my TV off. I also avoided the weekend FoxReport for the same reason.

I hate not liking the new FoxReport. I know how proud of it Shepard is, and how excited he was about his new set (Greta Van Susteren even shot a handicam video of him taking her on a tour of the new studio before the grand unveiling) but I'm just not feeling the love.

It took me a while to adjust to the lack of Skinnerville and the broadcast from the news room for Studio B. Maybe I just need time to adjust to it. I'm an old doggie...it's hard for me to learn new tricks.