Former ABC News reporter/anchor Sam Donaldson is ready to say the last rites for network news because it will soon lose its dominant position as Americans' primary source of news. "I think it's dead. Sorry," he said during a breakfast panel Tuesday at the National Association of Broadcasters' convention in Las Vegas. "The monster anchors are through."
Even though 30 million viewers still turn to networks news each night and garner ratings well above CNN and Fox News, networks news operations long ago lost their role as the sources Americans rely on during time of major breaking news, said Donaldson
"God forbid, if someone shot the President, which network would you turn to? It will be cable, the Internet--something other than General Hospital being interrupted."
Increasingly, viewers will continue turning to alternative sources for everyday news as well, he said.
Donaldson was joined on the panel by CNN political analyst Jeff Greenfield and CBS Sunday Morning's Charles Osgood., both of whom were less pessimistic about network news' future.
"If it's dying, it's dying a very slow death," Greenfield said. Although the network news monopoly was "smashed" by cable, broadcast news will redefine itself, thought he didn't yet know how.
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