TV news has failed in its George Floyd protest coverage: Maybe it's a structural problem?

Los Angeles Times

"It doesn’t help that the noisy presentation of television news, especially cable news, has an exhausting, deadening effect on a viewer: It all becomes a blur of speculation, opinion, posturing, repetition and even passion, after a while — not even a long while — presented in a frame cluttered with chyrons and windows and split screens," says Robert Lloyd of coverage of the Floyd protests. "Events can be obscured by their very reporting. Even on different networks, hosts grab from the same bag of often obvious questions, which elicit often obvious answers. I don’t want to say it’s unhelpful — there is information there, and sometimes the obvious question is the one that most needs to be asked — but it feels inadequate, unequal to the moment, confused, floundering. Perhaps it’s appropriate. I don’t mean to accuse any particular person of doing a poor job; like any viewer I find some broadcast journalists more and some less congenial. This failing feels structural; it may simply be beyond the capacity of news as we know it to tell this story, or any complicated evolving story, however many on-the-street encounters and interviews with public officials any network might air." The only response to the George Floyd killing and protests has been Trevor Noah's reaction posted last Friday, which has been "affecting, thought-provoking and memorable," says Lloyd.