As a child I watched the evening news with my parents as a nightly ritual. This was at a time when all 3 networks broadcast the news at the same time and even shared the same timing for advertising breaks thus we would rotate between networks with ABC on, say, Monday, NBC on Tuesday and CBS the next evening. This tended to give our father new obscenities to hurl at the screen each evening for each anchor(s) on a rotating basis.
At one point my father saw a photograph of LBJ's office with 3 televisions side by side in a custom cabinet and soon after there were 3 televisions for our house. My sisters and I would split up the the 3 news programs and individually memorize what was said. During the ads we would quiz our father about each network and he would always answer correctly.
We were all amazed by our father's ability. Years after my father died my mother pointed out that he said it really wasn't difficult as they all seemed to be reading from the same script. Or at least until Howard K. Smith's Marine son was sent to Vietnam as a soldier and Smith went off-script about the accepted anti war message. This was a welcome relief to our mother who had two son-in-laws stationed in Vietnam and the recent passing of my father.
My children watched the evening news with us as I did as a child. The difference was that i worked on Capitol Hill and would rush home for the tradition of news watching and then rush back to work. I've been reminded that I hurled a few choice words at the screen as my father did. I find it warmly amusing that my son now does the same when visiting with us, because it is only on those visits that I watch 'network' news having decided years ago that it wasn't worth it any more except to follow the news tradition with my son.
It is of no surprise that I read this story:
http://drudgereport.com/flashnf.htm
Cupcake Couric, Mr. Wiggley Eyebrows Williams and Mr. Excitement, Charlie Gibson. Never a sadder cast than these for obtaining news.
Howard K. Smith justifiably remarked many years ago that the evening news had become a "Punch and Judy Show."
