Freddie Gray’s death getting lost in a sea of TV formulas
Tuesday's 10 p.m. curfew was a cable-news, TV dream. Like a countdown clock, the whole day's coverage on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News was relentlessly driven by it with the...
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Cable TV shapes national perception of Freddie Gray’s death
From Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake getting grilled on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" to CNN giving wall-to-wall coverage of an afternoon news conference, the story of Freddie Gray's death became a national TV...
First look at a final struggle for the soul of ‘Mad Men’
I can't believe how cold the opening episode of the last season of "Mad Men" left me. How did I once love this series so much and how could I...
Watch this year’s Super Bowl? No, thanks.
I watched the first Super Bowl in 1967, and it was one of the great TV viewing experiences of my life. The resonant, rock-steady call of play-by-play announcer Ray Scott...
Cris Collinsworth explains his kiss-up Goodell comments
I'm not sure if it's damage control or Cris Collinsworth really thinking there was no problem with him and Al Michaels during Saturday's game trying to whitewash NFL Commissioner Roger...
NBC, Michaels, Collinsworth serve Goodell, not fans, in Ravens telecast
After another season of mostly praising Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and the NBC broadcast crew as the best in the business, I can't tell you how disappointed I was by...
Biggest stories of 2014 didn’t need traditional news outlets
Gaza, Ferguson, a casino elevator in New Jersey — this was the year that raw images and social media, not gatekeepers, drove the national conversation. From photos posted on Twitter...
The hype is unbearable, but Lauer does solid interview with Janay Rice
The "Today" show hype of its conversation with Janay Rice is almost grotesque in its overkill, but the first parts of Matt Lauer's actual sit-down with the wife of the...
ESPN sells out on Rice interview; NBC says no concessions were made
Updates at end with more from NBC and ESPN. If NBC News is telling the truth in how it got the interview with Ray and Janay Rice, what a difference...
Ray and Janay Rice meet NBC’s ‘Today’ show mega-marketing machine
NBC needed to bag a headline-grabbing interview after rival ABC got Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson first this week, and it did just that with Matt Lauer talking to Ray...