Edtv

Mosquitos running rampant? Alligators in your backyard? A murder trial with enough morbidity to make it last through a single news cycle? Rest assured, Ed Lavandera will be there. Lavandera is a secret kind of treat for me, because as a person who spends far too much time watching television, I know that there is no better way to pass time than watching a block of cable news all the way through. The only challenges for anchors during the middle of the day is to keep up enough energy after they introduce the segment about Mardi Gras in post Katrina New Orleans for the fifth time that day. They also have to engage in that kind of emotional detachment that allows them to be all smiles after the Jeannie Moos story about wacky hats, and then turn all frowny as they introduce the piece about the 17 year old Palestinian suicide bomber. It's the same trick that Katie Couric pulls on the Today Show every morning, except there's a reason these people are on at this time of day, they're not nearly as good at it than Couric is. I still kind of believe Couric cares about what she's talking about in her pieces, even though I've been watching her do the same shtick for the last 10 years. The CNN anchors, it can be embarrassing how transparent they are, how little they care or most likely understand what they're talking about. Which makes their interactions with Lavandera all the more awkward, since he is basically CNN's punching bag. Every story that is just barely exciting and important enough to make the news, that's Lavandera's beat. Every hurricane that would come ashore, Lavandera would be there (unless of course it became a national disaster, then they send in Big Blue to take charge). As I was watching Lavandera stand in front of that not so Ricin infected dormitory Saturday, I just couldn't believe the stuff they make him go through. It couldn't actually be that his official status was "Almost Interesting Story Correspondent" (though he does look like the kind of guy who would take that, unfortunately)? Then, I realized, there was a thread. The first sentence of his reporter profile gave it all away. It's all just a matter of geography. The poor sucker.