We humbly apologize for what the stupidity of the average American, the greed of the companies that have bought our networks, and the relentless pace of technology ( especially with respect to video editing) has done to your once noble profession.–Skippy-san.
There are two pieces of reporting on journalism that you should take the time to read and listen to this weekend. The first is this article by Ted Koppel on how the stupidity of the consumer of news, coupled with the unrestrained greed of the network owners combined to kill “real news”.
We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly – individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable.
The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s oft-quoted observation that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts,” seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.
And so, among the many benefits we have come to believe the founding fathers intended for us, the latest is news we can choose. Beginning, perhaps, from the reasonable perspective that absolute objectivity is unattainable, Fox News and MSNBC no longer even attempt it. They show us the world not as it is, but as partisans (and loyal viewers) at either end of the political spectrum would like it to be. This is to journalism what Bernie Madoff was to investment: He told his customers what they wanted to hear, and by the time they learned the truth, their money was gone.
It’s a fascinating and depressing recounting of the truth. How our news networks, pushed by the increasing competition from “news outlets” that are hardly worthy of the name. ( Insert Drudge, just about all blogs, talk radio, and host of other examples of mediocrity here. Especially on the conservative side of the aisle). In particular I found his point about the value of having lived overseas to be very true. To form an honest opinion of America and not be swept up by the myth of “American exceptionalism”-one has to step away from America for a while.
I recall a Washington meeting many years later at which Michael Eisner, then the chief executive of Disney, ABC’s parent company, took questions from a group of ABC News correspondents and compared our status in the corporate structure to that of the Disney artists who create the company’s world-famous cartoons. (He clearly and sincerely intended the analogy to flatter us.) Even they, Eisner pointed out, were expected to make budget cuts; we would have to do the same.
I mentioned several names to Eisner and asked if he recognized any. He did not. They were, I said, ABC correspondents and cameramen who had been killed or wounded while on assignment. While appreciating the enormous talent of the corporation’s cartoonists, I pointed out that working on a television crew, covering wars, revolutions and natural disasters, was different. The suggestion was not well received.
The parent companies of all three networks would ultimately find a common way of dealing with the risk and expense inherent in operating news bureaus around the world: They would eliminate them. Peter Jennings and I, who joined ABC News within a year of each other in the early 1960s, were profoundly influenced by our years as foreign correspondents. When we became the anchors and managing editors of our respective programs, we tried to make sure foreign news remained a major ingredient. It was a struggle.
Sadly Ted Koppel represents the tail end of a dying breed. Those of us who saw them in our youth, and grew up with Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Walter Kronkite and others, are now in no position to convey the experience to our attention deficit affected, more youthful, fellow citizens. I remain comforted by the idea that Murrow-who I was not old enough to experience-would have been just as disgusted by Twitter as I am.
Here is the other take on the news by Jon Stewart. Its long at 9+ minutes, but it is worth your time:
You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!
O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,
Knew you not Pompey?