To quote Andy Rooney, "Ya know what bugs me?" It seems all the tv news shows are in a competition to see who can get the most graphics up on the screen. At least one-third of the screen is taken up by that distracting news crawl, the text of what the reporter is saying, the title of what the reporter is reporting on, the temp and time, the traffic report, plus the "live" disclaimer over some correspondent standing in front of an empty courthouse in the freezing cold at 6 a.m. because her story happens to involve the district attorney -- there's nothing going on at the courthouse, and the courthouse really has nothing to do with her story, but for some reason it's important to report this story "live from the courthouse." In a story one day about a newborn panda, the news anchors kept oohing and aahing over the video of the cub, but the tv viewers couldn't see the panda, because with the camera angle, the cub was at the bottom of the shot, and the graphics covered him up.
The news crawl itself is an irritation. Either I can listen to the news, or I can read the crawl -- I can't multitask well enough to do both. Besides, half the time I'm reading the crawl, I get partially through a topic and the crawl disappears for a commercial, and I have no idea how the story ends. How frustating is that?!! I've heard the argument that all the graphics benefit those who are deaf. I would hazard a guess that a vast majority of those who are deaf avail themselves of closed-captioning.
Then there's that horrible thing that's developed in recent years -- the little pop-up figures promoting another program right in the middle of your favorite sitcom. I have a TV Guide! I don't need no stinkin' pop-ups!
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