Brian Williams Covers It All, and is Balanced!

Carolyn Menyes
c.menyes@gmail.com
@athousandmph

I'll begin this blog by saying that NBC has an absurd amount of news coverage, most of which I'd never experienced before. There are tweets, their website, local news stations and, of course, the NBC Nightly News.

The nightly, half hour broadcast news show is the classic American way to receive their news via TV, and it's also something I've never watched before. Therefore, for this semester, I will be analyzing NBC Nightly News and their coverage of the election.

Brian Williams and co. spent the first part of the week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Broadcasting from the floor, Williams in his nightly newscasts covered the prior evening's convention speeches. This is something that shows what an old school form of broadcast NBC Nightly News is... by the time Williams summarized and analyzed the speeches, it has been almost an entire day. Quotes flooded Twitter feeds, 24 hour news networks had already analyzed the speeches to death and people were ready to move on to the next thing. The timing of this broadcast is unfortunate for covering the conventions (6:30 every night), especially in the modern era and its instant way of delivering news.

One thing I did appreciate about NBC Nightly News was that it really DID seem fair and balanced. I find that the 24 hour news networks, such as CNN and Fox have biases that ooze into their coverage, but it was hard to find a slant in Williams' newscasts. For instance, when he interviewed Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, he asked the tough questions about his stance on the always controversial topic of abortion, but he was fair and respectful.

Therefore, even though NBC Nightly News has its downfalls due to its short broadcast and the time of day it airs, I still found it to be a great source for finding out a little about everything in the news. For instance, Williams gave about equal time for covering Hurricane Isaac and the RNC. So, I look forward to continuing to watch this program and see what else it has in store for the election season!

Do you think broadcast shows are still relevant in 2012? Are they generally more fair than their cable news show counterparts? Let me know in the comments below!