It may have been the television low point of the war in Iraq so far. The 24-hour cable news channels, which have been living on a strict diet of war and war only, were showing a smoky gray screen with nothing on it. Apparently, the camera was pointed to the sky. If you had been casually flipping by, you'd have thought it was C-SPAN, where they focus the cameras and go home.

This shot stayed up not for one minute, or two. But forever. At least, that's how it seemed. And all the while, anchors talked over the empty gray screen, like it was wallpaper. And then, there it was, an American Warthog airplane. The tiny speck quickly left the picture. But the picture stayed up. The anchor kept talking.

Does CNN have any editors? Just asking out loud.

Even insatiable war news junkies must realize by now that, although this is a 24-hour war tailor-made for 24-hour cable news channels, the networks are doing a better job -- with far less time.

That's because Gulf War II, as it is being called, is the great unedited war. And a strange 1,000-mile stare has gripped the executives at CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. If you've got a stationary camera -- or Abu Dhabi TV does -- then let the tape roll, if only to see the most bizarre scene imaginable in wartime: what looks to be a lone, battered Monte Carlo, rambling down the street for no clear reason.

No tape is too mundane to air. No Pentagon press conference too important to miss. There are not enough embedded reporters to get on the air, whether or not they add anything to the fabric of the story.

The networks, on the other hand, have turned a supposed liability into their greatest strength. Conventional wisdom always said that any story of this magnitude -- a nonstop American war -- would give the advantage to the cable news channels that didn't have to worry about bumping expensive prime- time entertainment fare like "Friends." The networks, with their news departments already feeling partly unwanted and unsure of their place outside the action, would sit on the sidelines and mop up with detached features.

Not so. Using their national newscasts and pumping war coverage into prime- time news magazines, the networks have given this war something it sorely lacks -- context, perspective and a story line that looks forward, not back at a battle that took place a mere five minutes ago.

By carefully crafting stories in the newsmagazines and editing -- oh, joyous editing -- packages for the nightly news, the networks have struck the right balance between serving the informed viewer and feeding news zombies.

In contrast, CNN, Fox News and MSNBC have gorged on Iraq and come up for air bloated, slow and confused. Anyone watching these broadcasts sees the same explosions repeated endlessly. Stories that could be told in 30 seconds or a minute suddenly drag on for five minutes, with long pauses between anchors and field reporters. Not much is either explained or answered in these live interviews, and yet the same verbal dance takes place again 15 minutes later. This cycle has diminished the ability to watch cable news.

Where the first week -- even 10 days if you wanted to be overly indulgent --

offered the hard-core news junkie ample time to marvel at the wonders of the modern, live war played endlessly on cable television, that fascination has now faded. It has also rubbed off the patina of competent journalism. What emerges now, for those still putting in the hours, is the inevitable impression that without editors, without reflection or even a modicum of critical doubt, is coverage more seemingly defined by the military.

With no one stopping for a breath, anchors repeat essentially what's told to them by the government, with phrases and lingo largely intact. Coalition forces are "pounding" or "hammering" the opposition, viewers hear, and while this is true in the bigger context, it ceases to be relevant when it's repeated ceaselessly.

Viewers sampling cable news broadcasts hear the same phrases that are largely missing from network coverage. CNN's Wolf Blitzer said a discovery Monday of chemicals could be a "potential smoking gun." MSNBC's Lester Holt said the discovery was also a "potential smoking gun." Each cable channel said a "noose was tightening around Baghdad."

This rush to talk, talk, talk, instead of report, edit and broadcast, leaves anchors and embedded reporters letting fly with some surprising observations. Blitzer, watching President Bush arrive at a tarmac in Ireland to meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said Bush was taking "a victory lap."

Rushing to air a video of U.S. soldiers inside a presidential palace in Baghdad, Judy Woodruff of CNN said, "There's now evidence that while much of his countrymen lived in poverty, Saddam Hussein . . ." Yes, Judy, there's quite a gap in lifestyles. But wasn't that evident last week, last year, a decade ago?

Far more egregious, however, are the unedited live shots, the discussions about minute developments that take up an hour of time, the green- hued shots of the Baghdad night and the words "More explosions heard in Baghdad" written underneath. And, yes, the tired, videophone-wielding battlefield reporters, standing by like telephone operators in the desert, as Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley, so precisely described them.

Viewing fatigue sets in as people flip on the TV at all hours to find out what's going on. Even with the kind of constant updates that MSNBC likes to provide, there's still a sense that war as wallpaper has invaded these channels. It's not a good look.

If CNN, Fox News and MSNBC seemed to corner the TV market on Gulf War II in the early going, with their addictive shots of tracer fire and pounding explosions, each has ceded a true understanding and a coherent explanation to the networks, who have suddenly discovered that sitting on the sidelines doesn't necessarily mean you're not the star.