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A few years ago, I was traveling and started talking to my cab driver
who was from Cuba.
I said, "What would you say is the biggest difference between Cuba and
the U.S.?"
He picked up a newspaper and said, "You have this! In my country, you
can't believe what you read or hear on television; here, you can."
I've never forgotten that moment. Here was a man who realized the value
of something most Americans take for granted: that what we read or watch
is the truth. Is it biased or slanted with a political point of view?
Maybe sometimes. but it's not a lie and it's not controlled or edited by
the government; that a free, unfettered media is the single most
important element in keeping government honest and keeping people
informed is a given.
So here's the problem, and it relates to television - especially local
news - more that it does to newspaper journalism. Television news has
too much freedom; freedom to spend the first 10 or twelve minutes of a
newscast on Michael Jackson, Lindsay Lohan or the latest celebrity train
wreck at the expense of other, obviously more important information. So,
why do they do this? Three reasons: ratings (money), weak management and
lack of government scrutiny. Let's take it step by step.
Ratings - The best and the worst thing that ever happened to TV news
is...it became profitable. In the beginning, television stations put
news on because they had to, as a public service...a requirement of
their government license to broadcast, and they lost money doing it. The
staff, many of whom came from newspapers, used the only story selection
criteria they knew. "What does the reader (viewer) need to know...what's
the important news of the day?" That worked well for quite a while, but
then, as the audience grew and advertisers started to notice. Local news
started to make money and ratings became important. That didn't matter
at first because the professionals were still in charge and standards
stayed high; the money became a good thing because stations spent more
to upgrade equipment, hire more people and add more hours of news
coverage, but over time, an insidious evolution has taken place. A few
news directors realized they could attract an audience, at least in the
short term by sensational reporting and sexy sweeps pieces. Their
ratings did go up...other stations noticed and the erosion of TV news
began.
Management - Part of the reason TV news is eroding is structural. The
newsroom is made up of writers, producers, reporters and
anchors...journalists. They're not the problem. If the TV news staffs at
American stations were allowed to shape their own newscast, it would be
a much more professional product than we generally see; but top managers
at TV stations aren't journalists, almost without exception the general
managers at US TV stations come up through sales; they didn't rise to
the top by knowing where the line is journalistically. They rose to the
top by knowing were the bottom line is, and therein lies the problem.
They look at the overnight ratings and see dollars, and if the night
their station's newscast led with Lindsay Lohan got a bigger number than
the night they led with the war in Iraq...well for them, the math is
simple. The problem with that thinking is if you continue to operate
that way, you risk long term credibility for short term gain...and the
message you send to your audience is "We're not really in the news
business anymore", sooner or later you'll lose their trust.
Government scrutiny...A television station in a major market is worth
hundreds of millions of dollars, they are licensed to operate by the
federal government. Not so long ago, when their license came up for
renewal every three years, they worried that their right to broadcast
might be challenged, and sometimes it happened. Now, under a sleepy FCC,
station licenses only come up for renewal every eight years. There are
challenges to station licenses, but rarely are they successful. After
all, a station making hundreds of millions of dollars can certainly
afford a big-gun Washington attorney to fight off most community
activists.
Now, here's my solution. There are more than 700 TV stations in the
country...I propose Congress to require the FCC to evaluate each
station's service to the community it serves every year using a
published set of guidelines. Substantial weight should be given to the
number of professionally run newscasts, covering news in the local
community as well as regional, national and international events. A
priority should be given to election coverage involving substantial
time, analysis and debate. The standards for professional newscasts
should be neither set nor judged by the FCC or other government agency.
The standards should be set up by an independent coalition of
journalists, and station performance in regard to those standards should
be evaluated by an independent commission. Each station should be given
a numerical grade, the stations should be ranked, and the lowest ranked
should lose their right to broadcast when their renewal period comes up
(it should come up much more often than every eight years), and, in a
public forum, other contenders should argue why they can serve the
community better.
I believe if broadcasters are made to realize the trust and obligation
that comes with operating under public privilege and for the first time
in years are made to feel the heat for ignoring the public trust, more
TV journalists can go back to doing news and not just television.
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