Commentary

Prime Scene Investigation: How Yasser Arafat Zapped 'CSI: New York'

Broadcast TV viewers are a fickle bunch. It's hard to know what primetime dramatics to give them -- a stirring conclusion of "CSI: New York" or the news of the death of PLO leader Yasser Arafat?

Both are important tools for life.

On hearing the news of Mr. Arafat's demise, an overly aggressive CBS news producer broke into the last minutes of "CSI" with a short news-produced segment; a package that should have been offered to stations to be run later in their local newscasts. As a result, Eastern and Central time zone viewers missed the ending.

CBS apologized for the interruption. As a make-good to viewers, it ran the entire episode again last night.

Poor CBS, it can't get a break.

Weeks before the Presidential election, CBS News ran that aggressive news report questioning President Bush's service while in the Texas Air National Guard - only to retract the story after its key source came up lame, citing he had given CBS wrong information.

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CBS apologized then too. After that, carefulness and conservatism in reporting was the order of the day.

The night of the election, CBS, just like other TV news network organizations, waited and waited until the next day before predicting that Ohio, as well as other states would be going Bush's way, and the overall election as well.

CBS didn't break any news in predicting the election that night - not wanting a recurrence of what happened four years before on Election Day.

CBS News attempted to break the story over other networks and what did it get? Grumbling viewers who really only care for the fictional entertainment world that Hollywood can give to them.

You can't blame that CBS producer for being aggressive. No, I wouldn't apologize for that person -- I'd offer a promotion. Press accounts should give CBS more credit in trying to break news. That is, if news still matters to viewers anymore.

But what does this say about TV news on the networks? What can experienced journalists such as Dan Rather tell budding news producers at CBS? "Do great journalism, confirm your information, and hope and pray your news breaks during a sitcom." They'd be safe with the knowledge that "King of Queens" or "Center of the Universe" doesn't have many cliffhanger endings with serious social messages.

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