Save the Network News! Um, Why, Exactly?
I have recently come into possession of a "book." Contrary to the stereotype of TV critics as illiterates, I even began to read it, after a brief time trying to figure out how to turn it on and flinging it across the room angrily while making ape noises.
The book is Reality Show, Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz's tome about the recent network news wars of Brian, Charlie and Katie (and Dan, and Diane, and Elizabeth...). It's what I think of as an "index book"--you get it, look through the index for the choice bits of gossip you've heard about in the carefully-crafted pre-publication leaks, then forget the book existed.
Other people have already written about the dirt, if you care about that. I'm more interested in the context: why should you read a book about the travails of newscasts that you very likely never watch anymore? And why should any of us care whether there's a way to save them?
Kurtz doesn't deny that the newscasts are foundering. Far from it: though he grew up watching the news,
A few short years ago I realized that I was increasingly missing the network newscasts, for reasons that were all too familiar. I got home too late, or was busy making dinner, or was distracted by a dozen other things. When I had the set on, I realized that I already knew the details of the top stories and often clicked it off. Sometimes I was on the computer, where any story, it seemed, was at my fingertips within seconds.
I was losing the habit.
This is in the introduction. Two pages in, we have learned that even the guy who wrote the freaking book can, sensibly, hardly be bothered to watch the evening news anymore. Only 440 pages to go! Sign me up!
It's an admirable admission, but it raises the question of why we should care that network newscasts are passing through irrelevance on the way to extinction. In the analytical wrap-up to Reality Show, he offers a version of the usual why-they-still-matter line:
They are still the biggest tent in the media village, still explaining the world--a few chunks of it, anyway--to those too busy to be surfing the Net or watching cable all day. They have the power to cut through the static and give a story a national profile. And because their divisions are essentially constructed to support them, they set the pace for the other network news shows.
I guess it's true, in the sense that rabbit ears still matter because some people still don't have cable. But mainly this seems like a tautology: the evening news still matters because it used to matter. Can they "cut through the static"? I tend to doubt it, and in any event they don't, for reasons Kurtz lays out: they have fewer resources and less airtime, they make safe, near-identical choices, and they are losing viewers because of social and demographic changes there is absolutely no way to reverse--not at 6:30 p.m. anyway. And "other network news shows"? Those would be The Early Show? To Catch a Predator?
Kurtz's final argument--that the big anchors are "national explainers" in an "info-saturated age"--is the least convincing. I've never bought the idea that having fragmented audiences get their news from more sources is bad. Look at online news: the atomized, fragmented masses can choose to get their news from wherever they want, and sure, plenty of them choose Drudge (who after all, mainly links to MSM sources anyway). But what has the anarchic mob chosen to make the most popular newspaper online? The New York Times, arguably the best newspaper in the country--now more widely read than ever--and in any case hardly an example of "info saturation" dumbing down the culture.
Yes, the big news anchors provided a central gathering place for Americans in times of crisis and big news, but (1) that's a fairly brief era in historical terms and (2) why, exactly, was most Americans getting the same information from monolithic sources a good thing? (Ahem, my editors don't read this blog, right?)
Should news gathering be improved, preserved and kept relevant? Of course. Does it need to be preserved in the form of half-hour broadcasts by millionaires at 6:30? Of course not. This is not, by the way, a damnation of Kurtz, or even a review of his book. Because in the end I read his introduction and analysis and flipped through Reality Show for the juicy bits. In the end, that was all I really cared about, and that's not Howard Kurtz's fault. But it is the network news' problem.
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1
What? The broadcast networks still have nightly news programs?
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2
The main reason I don't watch the news anymore is because most broadcast companies don't have the chutzpah to put out anything that is real. I think the government has most of the networks under its thumb so it can push out their "view" of how the world is going. Thats why we get news alerts about bears being tranquilized instead of reports on the all the genocide that is going on around us. I understand that people don't want to hear doom and gloom all day, but I prefer the reality of our political climate to the jingoism that is being pushed by todays media. But broadcast news isn't the only guilty party, it is all of the media's problem. It doesn't help that most of America has become mindless sheep who's only worries are materialistic. Just because we have it good, doesn't mean that there aren't others who are suffering.
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3
If you put the Daily Show or something like it into one of these nightly news slots do you think it would garner a greater following than the current lineup? People want to be entertained and the nightly news just isn't entertaining.
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4
In case anyone was wondering Reality Show is published by Free Press which is a division of Simon and Schuster which is itself (drum roll) a CBS Company.
"Please watch our news its interesting we swear!" -
5
OperaYak,
You obviously have not heard that the driveby media, aka the liberal MSM is a division of the leftist Democratic party and therefore only reports things that make conservatives look bad. You know, the vast left wing conspiracy. If you were unaware, you must not be listening to all of the various talk radio hosts that are on 3 hours a day, 5 days a week or the bloggers that are spreading the "new media" truth. Shame on you! Get on board!
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6
I like the local news. Where else am I going to learn what tri-state area convenience stores were held up? Also local stations are usually a day or two ahead of the cable nets on missing beauty queen stories.
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7
High Priest: Great wall of prophecy, reveal to us God's will, that we may blindly obey!
Other Priests: Free us from thought and responsibility.
High Priest of Osiris IV: We shall read things off you!
Other Priests: Then do them.
High Priest of Osiris IV: Your words guide us!
Other priests: We're dumb.Taken from Futurama, A Pharoah to Remember
Just adapt that to your version of the main stream media.
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8
"Just adapt that to your version of the main stream media."
Or the "new media".
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9
I think there is a place for network news. It just needs a rework. I think it was on this blog where the idea was mooted that the network news could be shifted to the 8-9 slot. This would address the “news is on too late” argument. Also, the hour long format could, in theory, allow fore a more comprehensive newscast.
You can look at the weekly newsmagazine industry as an eample It has been years since I read Newsweek or, ahem, Time. Mostly because they have really stopped being news related. However, Despite the fact that I get a majority of my news from the interweb; I still I do read the Economist, because it offers a thoughtful and balanced approach to the news.
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10
For all this talk about how "over" network evening news is, the fact remains that the audience for each of the evening news shows dwarfs that of any other "news" show. Even the lowest rated of the evening news shows outdraws the number one cable news program (O'Reilly Factor) by more than 3-1.... so the idea that somehow or other "network news" is no longer important is sheer nonsense.
Sure, that half hour is no longer the dominant force it once was, but just because the 'tastemakers' and 'trendsetters' and beltway bloviators have switched to the internet/cable for news doesn't mean that there isn't a huge audience for network news.
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11
Whats the point of having a huge audience when all the evening news pushes is the agenda of our currupt system? It just makes people mindlessly follow whatever rhetoric is spewed out of the talking (albeit un-naturally good looking) heads that populate the evening news. The news people should be taking a stand against what is happening with their medium that they have decided to be a part of. If lies are repeated enough, they become reality to some.
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12
Currupt?
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13
Nightly news is PURELY entertainment. The first 10-15 min is news that is old news by the time early evening rolls around (thanks to the web), and the rest of the program covers human interest pieces that are either of the "feel good" or "scare the old ladies" variety, with no practical informative value and the same effect as a car wreck on an expressway. There is no informative value to news programs anymore... More attention is paid to the drama in the lives of the talking heads reading the news than of the news itself... the Kurtz book is a case in point. Look at all of the drama behind Katie Couric at CBS and how much attention that gets, but can anyone anywhere offer up an opinion to her contribution to news reporting or any great stories she has investigated or presented? For that matter, can this be said about anyone else involved in broadcast news these days?
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14
Hee hee! Too much funny.
why, exactly, was most Americans getting the same information from monolithic sources a good thing? (Ahem, my editors don't read this blog, right?)
That's what I'm saying. Also, hee!
This is such an amazing time for the decentralization of "news" sources, even as the "news" providers are desperately trying to monopolize the distribution of news. I never watched the news, except for Nick News with Linda Ellerbee. Now that is a quality program. Maybe if these media conglomerates reported actual events then they wouldn't have to put out a lame book.
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15
Interestingly, I just had this conversation with a friend of mine (who is among those who sees the network news as a left-wing outlet).
I DO think the network news is important. Not perhaps the 1/2 hour format as it currently is, but it's extremely important to have a source of free news, in some format. I know people think that everyone has cable and the internet, but they in fact do not.
The networks also have to at least give a show of presenting a non-opinionated version of the news. Whether you read bias (either way) or not, they aren't a bunch of talking heads, which is what populates the majority of cable outlets. And do you really think you're getting an unbiased view of the news from BLOGGERS? C'mon people. Every blogger out there has an opinion, and they cherry-pick their stories based on those opinions.
You want an in-depth news outlet? Watch Lehrer on PBS every night. Comprehensive and insightful and not a single mention of Britney or Paris.
BTW...full disclosure...I'm not 60 years old and still harkening back to the Cronkite days.
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16
"Lehrer on PBS" might not have "a single mention of Britney or Paris", but it's not necessarily a fair and balanced source of news. Boring doesn't always equal relevant. Not that I watch. Maybe I'll start watching his Mr. Lehrer's news hour, then I'll have more to say.
- poniewozik Loved the season. Mrs Tuned In wd have put u on the main list RT @boredtodeath Thank u for incl us in Time's Top 10. We'll take hon mention. - 4 hours ago
- poniewozik @carr2n Virgin is the best, LAX-JFK - 5 hours ago
- poniewozik Did NPR interview abt multiscreen multitasking. After, automatically reached for iPhone in pocket. Like don draper wd have for cigarettes. - 6 hours ago
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