TV noncoverage of the war in Ukraine

 The other day a friend of mine said she was surprised to hear about the Kerch Strait bridge being blown up in Crimea--she though the war in Ukraine was over months ago, since there had been no news on TV about it for a long time. I was aghast and told her about all the daily updates on YouTube.

I realized in that conversation that--notwithstanding  that I'm older by far than she is--she's still getting her "TV" from some cable company bundle that no doubt includes ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and CNN, while I have moved on. I do not get television coverage from the cable company, I only get internet service. Cheaper. Fewer commercials to have to sit through. And if I want ESPN I can get that separately for a small monthly fee through ROKU, not a cable television bundle.

Let's take CNN and kvetch about that for a minute. 30 years ago, we watched CNN's coverage of the Iraq invasion of Kuwait and subsequent war, Operation Desert Storm, and so on. A young Wolf Blitzer seemed to be on 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the Cable News Network--which only broadcast breaking news 24/7--was THE station to watch. ABC, NBC, and CBS only had news at 5 pm and 6 pm, 10 pm maybe, and the rest of the time it was Regular Programming. FOX didn't exist. So if you wanted up-to-the-minute news flashes, CNN was it. After the war, CNN didn't have much news to give, so it branched off CNN Headline News from CNN News. Headline News repeated itself every half-hour, and CNN News deteriorated into opinion interviews and syndicated columns (more opinions). The other acronym-TV providers, which never had 24/7 news coverage, nonetheless followed CNN's lead by morphing real Cronkite-style news reporting into today's opinion presentations masking as news. Or panels of entertaining personalities giving opinions about news. Riddled with commercial breaks. Let's not even get into what The Weather Channel has become (we call it the Commercial channel). I guess there is just not that much earth-shaking news going on (or disastrous weather, either) to command 24/7 coverage. 

Now about the Ukraine war. All the above channels are too set in their ways now to keep covering the Ukraine war day after day. "It was interesting for a month but..." The talking heads want to go back to talking about some old Trump thing (not some old Hilary thing which is also still grinding through the wheels of justice), or the latest mass killing or riot instead. Panels like the Five on Fox just blah blah blah. If you want day-to-day news coverage, including DETAILED BATTLE MAPS showing the latest advances and retreats; if you want interviews with foreign diplomats, and retired US Generals, about their takes on the latest developments--David Petraeus, Ben Hodges, Wesley Clark, Jack Keane, and others; if you want fewer commercials, then go to YouTube. "Clips" or short news videos from CNN, FOX, DW (German news), Sky News Australia, Al Jazeera, France 24, and WION (Indian news) are there. In English. Whenever you want. BBC regularly updates a big war map. As well, Denys Davidov, a Ukrainian commercial airline pilot, has created a channel of his own (in English), showing a detailed map of the fighting, updated daily. There's a channel called Warthog that I like, with Western-viewpoint takes on the latest battle videos. With all this, YouTube's AI (sensing what I have watched) now throws those channels right up there in my face to watch again so I don't need to hunt for them anymore.

Side kvetch about YouTube commercials: they used to be nearly commercial-free, but more and more commercials are appearing. Channel content providers are encouraged by YouTube to throw commercials in; that way the providers get some money. I guess this is that "moneymaking side hack" trick that employed-at-home people are falling for. YouTube works both sides of the street, however: they now entice watchers who are tired of the increasing commercials to PAY MONEY to YouTube to get commercial-free viewing.

So, in my conversation with my friend, I realized that over the decades, I've seen "news" slide from television (broadcast and cable) over to the internet. And not everyone has realized that. The war has brought that into focus for me.

Barbara