I caught glimpses of domestic US news (namely cbs and abc). They were incredibly painful to watch. Most big news (eg iraq) are dealt with before the first ad break, in a fast edited highly graphic style that I now associate with these kinds of news. The remainder of the half hour is filled with what can only be described as fluff 'human interest' stories.
One other thing that they do is they always begin a news item with a sort of anecdote or personal touch. It usually goes like this: 'So many people said it cannot happen, but today it was announced ...', instead of going 'Today it was announced...'.

OK, if you could talk to a major U.S. network journalist and give him/her a wish list for, say, ways to handle Iraq coverage that would a) lead to more intelligent journalism, and b) survive his/her editor and make it to be broadcast, what would you ask for? (Assuming you don't think those two are mutually exclusive.)

You have a fondness for this kind of question. I don't.

However, generally speaking practice in the BBC / Euronews style would be my solution. Ceasing the faux 'humanisation' would be a major improvement. Whether the US market will sustain such is open to question.

Yes, I feel this way on my visits to the states. I first watched CNN when I was overseas and so I thought the US version was the same as the international version (we never had cable when I was growing up) and when I went home on home leave I was erally surprised at how stupid and navel-gazing the CNN US version was. And, of course, the network versions are even stupider (although as you say if you take the humor approach you can find them funny - I guess I don't have much of a sense of humor at them because so many people unquestioningly accept what they say and I can never forget that).

If I ever return to the States to live, I think I won't even buy a TV - except perhaps to watch movies on.

I read somewhere recently that one of the only US news outlets to have gained audience share over the past four or five years has been NPR. That tracks my preferences, surely.