is your pet psychic?

What the hell is wrong with CNN Headline News?

Headline News used to be my favorite channel. The concept was simple: no matter where you where, no matter what time of day, you could always tune in and know that you were going to catch the headlines at four well-defined times per hour. A simple schedule, one talking head, no frills - not a substitute for in-depth reporting and analysis, just the highlights without any fluff or cornball happy pieces to try to balance the real news with a spoonful of saccharine. Snicker all you want, call it news for people who don't have the time to read USA Today, but it met a need.

Then came the big format change a few years ago with the fancy sets, the ticker at the bottom of the screen, and the other stuff over on the left side. It took some getting used to, all this web-inspired content, but in the end it turned out ok. The same old idea, just jazzed up for the information age.

But now they've just gone too far. Fist the production started getting sloppy - goofed transitions between clips recorded at different times earlier in the broadcast, not even trying to maintain the illusion of a live production. Repeating the same stories once or twice an hour throughout an entire weekend. Unprofessional, I suppose, but understandable, maybe even forgivable.

But now they've abandoned the origin concept to make way for prime-time programming. Excuse me? What the hell? The beauty of Headline News was that when I finally dragged myself home at 8:30 or 9 pm from yet another eleven-hour day I could turn on the tube and get the national and world news without waiting for the 10 or 11 pm cheeseball local broadcasts that were more likely to lead with stories like "Local woman renegs on adoption promise." Now I've got a mix of entertainment news (how the hell is that any different from crap shows like Entertainment Tonight or Extra?) and...Nancy Grace.

Excuse me, but...Nancy Grace? Has there ever been a more condescending, irritating, judgmental, officious bitch in the history of TV? As far as I can tell, her show is nothing but a conduit for her pushy sanctimonious opinion - a big fat wet kiss to the smug, white-trash America that sucks down Fox News (sic) like a Mountain Dew big gulp at a Hardee's. Remember when news was fact, not opinion? Remember when the anchors at least attempted to deliver the story without bias? Nancy Grace is reality-TV-style entertainment for the unwashed redneck masses. Feisty and opinionated? How about bitchy and clueless?

It irks me to no end that the Fox News (sic) phenomenon has seeped over into the mainstream media to the point that CNN has to prostitute itself to attract viewers from the swelling pool of lowest-common-denominator America. Time to tear out the cable box and throw out the TV - from now on I get my news on the web.