Seriously..... Just Stop

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There are 316 million people in the United States.

Currently, 3 of that 316 million people have ebola. I'll let you figure out what percentage that is?

Yet, news divisions around the country are seeing ebola as the next big ratings grabber and have hooked onto the story.

The Gannett station in Jacksonville is blowing out programing and running an ebola special. Never mind the fact that the closest case of ebola is in a quarantined hospital room in Atlanta.

NBC Nightly News first 4 stories last night were ebola, ebola, ebola, ebola. 

More Americans have died from being bitten to death by a camel than ebola. 

The media seems to be covering every person that shows up at the local hospital with a fever, as a possible case of ebola.

Morning news meetings are all about how we can localize the ebola story?

The hype is out of control and the media is scaring the crap out of people that have no reason to be scared. Because of all the panic reports, the airline industry is getting hit hard, the stock market is tanking and the media seems happy to make it all happen. 

The politicians are using the ebola scare to try and drum up votes and they are talking to any camera pointed in their direction. Sadly, the media is only too happy to oblige these idiots.

There is one person in the United States is very happy to see the ebola panic stories.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. The media has totally left the NFL domestic violence story and has latched onto the ebola story like a linebacker sacking a quarterback. 

Goodell is all but getting a free pass from the media as it has abandoned the domestic violence story for the flavor of the month. By the way, a hell of a lot more people have died from domestic violence, than ebola. 

I will say it again, 3 people in the United Staes out of 316 million have ebola. Seriously, please stop with the scare stories.

The short term ratings bump is not worth the long term credibility hit you guys are going to take.

Just saying... 

CNN Offering Counseling to those Pink Slipped

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CNN continues to gut itself with layoffs and show cancelations, but the company is trying to soften the blow for those bounced. 

Those that got pink slipped received a message offering “an experienced counselor” who will be on hand to offer confidential services. 

Almost 30 people alone are getting kicked to the curb at CNN's DC bureau.

More cuts are expected today.

CNN's PR people are not commenting on the cuts, because you know, the communications business. 

Why did Rochester Station Cancels Interview with NY Governor?

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WHAM in Rochester, NY canceled an interview with NY Governor Andrew Cuomo after the Gov's staff tried to lay down some ground rules.

It appears that the Gov. was more than happy to discuss his new book, but no anything of you know, substance. 

Five minutes before the scheduled 4 p.m. interview, a Cuomo campaign aide relayed the message that only questions about the memoir, “All Things Possible,” would be permitted.

“We said, ‘No. That’s unacceptable. We have to ask relevant questions beyond the book,’ ” said WHAM news director Matt Malyn.

The interview was canceled.

Props to the station for doing the right thing. 

H/T NY Post 

FTVLive Predicted it and now it has Happened

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Why I'm not running a cable news station, I have no idea?

When CNN announced that they were bringing back the political snooze fest "Crossfire," FTVLive predicted it would be canceled.

The show has been on and off CNN countless over the past year. 

Now, CNN has finally taken the show out back and shot it to death.

It has officially called a ceasefire on Jeff Zucker's brilliant plan to bring back Crossfire.

Just as we said would happen. 

Today Ebola...5 Years Ago it Was Balloon Boy

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Today the media is busy trying to scare the shit out of you with ebola reports and rumors that are not even close to the facts.

If we go back in time, 5 years ago Today, the story that the media was harping on was "Balloon Boy."

Yep, it was 5 years ago that Falcon Heene and his family gripped the nation as a balloon said to be carrying Falcon was blowing across the Colorado sky.

The media was all over the story as rescuers searched frantically for the boy, then 6, whose parents said had floated away in the balloon.

Fears quickly turned to skepticism and then outright hostility when the boy eventually appeared at his parents' Fort Collins home. Richard and Mayumi Heene insisted the boy had hidden in the garage.

The evening after Falcon's reappearance, when Richard Heene during a CNN interview (note: CNN still covered news back in those days) asked Falcon why he didn't come out when he heard his parents calling his name during the search, the boy said, "You guys said that we did this for the show."

It was a stunt and the media fell for it.

Now, the media wants you to fall for the ebola scare that is sweeping the nation. 

Makes you kind of miss Balloon Boy now doesn't it.

H/T KUSA

HBO To Offered Online without Cable

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It what can only be considered great news, HBO says that starting next year they will be offering HBO with no need to have cable. 

HBO's Chairman and CEO Richard Plepler promised HBO would be offering its streaming service à la carte starting next year.

This is huge news to cord cutters and it will likely encourage more people to give up cable and their rapidly growing price hikes. 

HBO did not say how much the streaming only service will cost, but it has said in the past that if offered it will be at a fair price.

Stay tuned.... 

CNN Pulls the Plug on Unguarded which was Unwatched

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Back in November of 2013, FTVLive wrote that "CNN's experiment of putting a sports show on the news network is not off to a very promising start."

Well, the experiment is now over.

CNN used the scheduled budget cuts to cancel the low rated show. While many people that work on the show are being shown door, host Rachel Nichols will stay on at the network u̶n̶t̶i̶l̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶r̶a̶c̶t̶ ̶r̶u̶n̶s̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶to be used on other shows. 

Turner CEO is Bullish on the future of CNN

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It might be total bullshit, but Turner CEO John Martin says that is "bullish on the future of CNN."

Martin made the comment to investors this morning, adding that the goal of CNN is continue to expand the brand promise at CNN with more shows live Anthony Bourdain's, Lisa Ling's and Mike Rowe's.

Did anyone else notice that not one of those people is a Journalist? 

I did. 

Thug Carjacks Indy News Crew

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A WXIN Fox 59 news crew was carjacked last night.

Indianapolis police said that the news crew was attacked around 8:15 p.m. near 37th Street and Emerson Avenue.

The suspect described only as a black male wearing dark clothing and a hoodie (right Geraldo?) took the station-branded news car at gunpoint, along with cash.

Cops later found the vehicle at 41st Street and Irvington.

No one was injured, but personal items were missing from the vehicle, including a purse. The crew's camera and other electronic equipment was not taken.

Officers later recovered the purse and the gun used in the robbery. They identified the weapon as a pellet gun.

WXIN reported in a tweet that their crew was ok.

H/T WTHR

Killer is Busted....Wait!....No he Wasn't

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KOLD in Tucson broke the big news that Scottsdale family-killer Robert Fisher had been captured.

There was just one tiny mistake on their story....Fisher was not arrested. 

The story was posted on the station's website tucsonnewsnow.com, which is home to both CBS-affliliate KOLD and Fox-affiliate KMSB.

It seems the station confused the facts of a story from over the weekend in which a bogus tip about Robert Fisher at a Colorado home led to the arrests of two men.

The story stated that Fisher, one of the most wanted men in the country after killing his wife and two children in 2001, "is now behind bars."

"Investigators have confirmed a man arrested in Colorado is 53-year-old Robert Fisher," and that a tip led to his capture.

But Fisher was never at the home, much less arrested -- and authorities never said that he was. As other news outlets in Arizona and around the country reported, police only found two suspicious men at the Commerce City, Colorado, home.

Michelle Germano, news director for KOLD, didn't want to get into how the "egregious" error happened. But "there have been consequences," she says.

Although journalist Colton Shone's name is at the top of the story in an apparent byline, Shone only posted the article online and didn't write it, she says. Germano declined to identify the author.

The station says the story was on the website for about 10 minutes before the unnamed reporter read an article on azcentral.com about the Fisher tip in Colorado and realized a mistake had been made. The bad info wasn't broadcast on the airwaves.

Also, the reporter should have corrected the facts rather than removing the article entirely from the website, Germano says.

"All those involved have been talked with," she says. "We take these matters very seriously."

H/T Phoenix New Times