Stewart and Me

“Now kids. next up is a life-size replica of a once common sight: the video news crew. Believe it or not, simple news footage used to be acquired by more than one person! Teams of two would use bulky recording equipment to pursue all sorts of minutia for their evening newscasts. Can you say ‘evening newscast’? Good… Usually clad in colorful logos, these early interlopers would produce feverish dispatches that often featured extended on-camera appearances by the prettier of the pair. It seems strange now, but this form of reportage flourished in the last half of the Twentieth Century, when average citizens only had 500 or so ‘Tee-Vee’ channels to choose from. Of course everything changed when Saint Albert Gore invented the internet and revolutionized telecommunications. Despite the explosion of electrnic outlets, the tenacious news crew held on for quite some time, far surpassing the decline of American newspapers. Does anyone know what killed the video star? Hmmm? That’s right – the live decapitation of Geraldo Rivera by a flying piece of weed-eater string during Hurricane Virgil in 2017. That event went on to become YouTube’s most watched video of all time, but eventually soured the viewing public on the idea of narrated news altogether. Which brings me to our next exhibit, the Rosenblum Institute of Fuzzy Coverage. Follow me class – but be careful! The ceilings – and standards – are very low in there…”