Annals of Morning News

Oy. So last night I read this story in the Times about how CBS's Early Show is retooling itself -- new anchor, new set, new theme music. I didn't expect much, because once you cut through the puffery from the show's new EP, Shelley Ross, it didn't sound like much was going to change. Because I'm a glutton for punishment, and because I've written before about how they need to shake things up over at CBS News, I decided to tune in. I discovered, unsurprisingly, that the show still stinks!

The new anchor, Maggie Rodriguez, was promoted from The Saturday Early Show, which I bet you didn't know even existed. She could be competent, but it's hard to say, since she's weighed down by Harry Smith, an unfunny man with a decent grasp of public affairs who has been woefully miscast, and Julie Chen, who, if she weren't Les Moonves's wife, probably would've gotten the boot years ago. Their weatherman, Dave Price, continues to strain so hard to be quirky that it makes for viewing that is alternately awkward and painful. The only one of the bunch who has managed to retain a scrap of respectability is Russ Mitchell, who does the news rundown as competently as one can do it in the ridiculously short span of five minutes.

The new set is shiny and all, but the color palette is still more suited for an evening broadcast. Perhaps the person who thinks heavy blues and grays are the way to go at 8:00 am can flip the channel one morning and see what the show's far more successful rivals are doing. And the music, which the Times' Brian Stelter charitably called "upbeat" and "slightly aggressive," is in fact some bizarre hip-hop beat. In an uncharacteristic episode of self-awareness, the anchors mocked the music by pointing this out and then "dancing," if that's what one can call it, like Eminem.

Until this morning, I retained the misguided hope that the new format might entail a positive change or two to the mixture of features that the show runs. I was right that there would be new features but wrong that they'd be any good. A few minutes into the 8:00 hour, viewers were told of the debut of "Paparazzi: Behind the Pictures," which, in CBS's words, tells "viewers how photographers actually get those shots that make their way around the world." If this sounds like a vaguely news-y way to broadcast embarrassing pictures of celebrities, you're right! The intro to the segment featured pictures from all angles of Britney Spears being carried into an ambulance, after which we got to see an interview with someone who runs a website with embarrassing images of celebrities. If that wasn't informative enough, you could wait a while for a piece on handbags.

So far as I can tell, the show is going to be about as awful as it's always been. Sure it's unfair to read too much into the first broadcast of a show, there's always room for improvement, etc., but there's no indication whatsoever that CBS has any interest in actually changing the underlying formula that is, in theory, supposed to make a morning newscast work. Instead, they're still trying to make the standard model work for them, using most of the same elements -- bland hosts with nothing approximating chemistry, a sterile and cold set, and features that pander to the least informed viewers possible -- that have kept them a consistent failure for years.

This isn't to say that the other morning shows are "better," in any journalistically meaningful sense of the word -- only that they're better in trafficking in the conventional morning show pablum. To put things in perspective, The Today Show this morning featured a segment -- I kid you not -- about a man who turned blue. Pitting this against the paparazzi feature, one is left, as always when watching the morning newscasts, with the question: These are our choices?

Comments

[SpencerCat]

Ugh, you are so right. Who cares about any of the 3 network morning shows? They don't provide actual NEWS and I don't care to waste my valuable morning time watching puff pieces about dancing air traffic controllers.

They can't figure out if they want to report news or be Regis & Kelly. Trying to be both doesn't work.