What if the public hates public affairs?
: I dread Sunday mornings because TV and radio are filled with alleged “public affairs” programming, which is really just dutiful crap meant to appease bureaucrats and pressure groups. There are racial and ethnic segments that are essentially insulting to their apparent audiences (if the story is worth doing, then do it in prime time; don’t ghettoize it here). There are political round-tables that make me want to crawl under the nearest table and fall asleep (and you wonder why people don’t vote). And there are interviews with nut jobs pushing some nut view (just to stop them from bugging the newsroom, no doubt). I can’t stand any of it. Public affairs programming has absolutely no value to me as a member of said public.
But there are forever pushes for more of it: programming by quota.
The Washington Times (of all publications) reports on a study by the “Alliance for Better Campaigns” [beware “alliances” for they are the folks who fill Sunday morning with snoozes] arguing there’s too little public-affairs programming:
Broadcasters have relegated local public-affairs programming to the very bottom of the heap
