Deggans' Nine Media Mistakes in '07: Part Two

4) The Hollywood Writer's Strike Hobbles a Lackluster Network TV Season -- At a time when network TV should be presenting its strongest product yet to counter cable and the YouTubes of the world, the industry offered a fall season so mediocre a sitcom culled from a car insurance commercial wasn't even the worst show. The strike by film and TV writers has only made things worse, ensuring that the medium drowns in reruns and reality TV long enough to turn the hardiest couch potatoes into websurfing Wii fanatics.

3) New School Racism -- Everybody's got an excuse. Don Imus gives to charity, Dog the Bounty Hunter considers himself an honorary black person, Isaiah Washington swears the videotaped press conference misquoted him and Ann Coulter simply blames liberal media bias. But each of these yahoos also proved that anti-black, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Jewish sentiment still rears its ugly head at the oddest moments in pop culture, though the public thankfully seems less tolerant than ever.

2) Opinions in Newscast Clothing Rules Cable -- If there was ever any doubt that punditizing disguised as news reporting has taken over cable news, the ascendancy of Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann this year clinched it. Forget about political ideology; polls show viewers increasingly unable or unwilling to separate news reporters from opinionators, regardless of political stripe.

1) Hillary's Cleavage, Obama's Pledge of Allegiance and Rudy's Cellphone Calls Take Too Much Media Oxygen -- As the presidential race narrows, there are more stories of substance, I'll grant you. But for too long in 2007, we were beset with stories about the presidential candidates which meant little or nothing, from Clinton's decolletage, to Giuliani's annoying habit of taking calls from his wife during speeches. Tired as the press corps may be of this two-year-and-counting presidential race, we are still electing the leader of the free world in 11 months or so. Let's get some news stories on deck which reflect that.