I thought I would use this forum to bring up some of my "pet peeves" regarding television. My first entry is about the Today Show on NBC.
I generally watch this when I'm getting ready for work, and like most shows of this type, it's fairly formulaic. For example, when 7:30a Eastern rolls around, I know it's time for the "missing blonde girl and/or baby" story. However, that's not what annoys me.
All morning news shows are obsessed with getting "exclusives"--someone to come on the show who isn't on the other shows--at least not yet. I understand that from the news and rating perspective. What bugs me is that the writers or producers of the Today Show don't understand how to use "exclusive" correctly in a sentence.
- Correct: "We have an exclusive interview with Bob Smith"
- Incorrect 1: "Bob Smith is here exclusively"
- I assume this means Bob is not bi-locating, he is in fact only in their studio, has not broken the laws of physics, and is not astrally projecting himself to GMA.
- Incorrect 2: "We are speaking to Bob Smith exclusively"
- That's good--it would be very difficult to understand if you held two different interviews at the same time.
Here's a recent example--listen for "exclusive" being used incorrectly at 0:12.
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