reporters

We've been getting a lot of wisdom and insight from our beauty pageant contestants lately. First was the solution to our lack of maps/Africa/the Iraq situation uttered so eloquently by Miss Teen South Carolina, and now we have Miss USA Rachel Smith, who explained what she wants to do with her career in front of the Women In Entertainment Empowerment Network (WEEN?):

"I always wanted to be a reporter - maybe some TV. Who knows? Some serious news - but some modeling, too...I just don't want to end up like Katie Couric. I want people to take me seriously."

I'll admit it: I'm a sucker for blooper shows. The ones from sitcoms and dramas where the actors screw up are OK, but the great ones are from news broadcasts, because not only are the shows live, but they're supposed to be very straightforward and serious most of the time. You can see some sort of minor blooper on almost every news broadcast, but the ones here at AOL TV aren't minor. Like the newsanchor that has a tooth fall out of his mouth while live on the air, or the college weatherman who is incredibly nervous and gives one of the worst weather forecasts you'll ever see. Or the guy who tries to stuff a dollar bill down the cleavage of a reporter and the massive slips of the tongue on a live show. And then there's something everyone will like, the prank caller who manages to get on Nancy Grace's show and call her something we'd all like to call her.

Oh, and the next time you're watching your local news, and you think that the meteorologist or the anchorperson is lame or silly, remember this weatherman from the Charlotte, NC TV station (second video down). Wow. (He was eventually fired after rehab and now works at KREX-TV in Denver.)

The Bravo reality show Tabloid Wars hasn't been doing too stellar in the Mondays at 9pm time slot, so the network is moving the show to 7pm for the final few episodes.

I haven't seen one minute of this show, which is surprising to me, since if there's one reality show I thought I'd be interested in would be one that centered around news or journalism. But I think the overdose of reality shows we experience in general might make viewers not want to watch even the shows they might really like.

This guy, however, live blogs the episodes.

What was that old line William S. Burroughs spouted in those old Nike ads, something about the purpose of technology not being to confuse the brain, but to serve the body? Well, NBC news anchor Brian Williams is worried that portability and on-demand technology might not be doing much for the brains of citizens at all, claiming it allows people to filter out the bad news that is also important in keeping us informed. Part of a journalist's job, he claims, is to provide a "civics lesson." So what do you guys think? Is being able to pick an choose the information we receive a good thing or not? I have a tendency to think people have always done this, but that now it's just more convenient.