Diane v. Matt, Continued

Two more e-mails about Diane v. Matt:

“People should be congratulating both Good Morning America and Diane Sawyer. While the rest of the morning shows sit around in their comfy armchairs doling out helpful homemaking tips and bad celebrity interviews, its nice to see one of the morning shows covering something that’s actually relevant. Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson are turning the evening news into morning shows and I for one applaud Diane Sawyer for trying to add a little gravitas to the morning show.”

“Somehow, it becomes a debate over who’s a more serious journalist. That’s not the issue. Diane interviews Assad and she also interviews Britney and Mel. Matt interviews Miss USA and he also interviews Bush and Ohmert. What matters to insiders in the TV news business is something else. IT’S SWEEPS! And ratings matter. NBC comes out of the box in sweeps with a heavily promoted tabloid interview that people actually want to watch (or secretly watch while pretending to be interested in subjects like Syria). There’s no shame in this stunt — in fact, you can bet GMA worked hard to get the same booking. Meanwhile, #2 GMA starts sweeps with an interview with the whispering Syrian leader. And the ratings dive. That’s the difference between the shows in a nutshell.”