Beginning in late February, I will be leading an adult LSU Continuing Education class titled From Watergate to Muffingate. Less mysterious than the title is the subject matter—what happened to television news?
Since the classes are designed for the 50 and older demographic, the collective memory of most participants will have been exposed to the “good old days” when local newscasts covered substantive stories, broadcast networks were something other than interruptions of pharmaceutical ads, and cable news networks employed more correspondents than pundits.
In most television markets, local news has become a bad joke—the most recent example being WGNO in New Orleans, which laid off part of its staff to focus on “News with a Twist.”
http://www.nola.com/tv/index.ssf/2011/12/wgno_layoffs_accompany_news_wi.html
WGNO’s News Director explained the new format in terms that should make any journalist cringe. “It’s a great alternative if you are tired of traditional news.” In other words, the station doesn’t want to bore people by reporting what’s happening in town—a city that has one of the nation’s highest murder rates. The station’s news executive pointed out his job is to please advertisers, not inform viewers.
Sad to say, WGNO is part of a large chain of TV stations—the Chicago based Tribune Broadcasting Corporation—and if ”News with a Twist” is successful in New Orleans, the format will spread to other Tribune-owned newsrooms. Because success breeds imitation, variations of WGNO’s no news is good news style will then spread across the country.
Speaking of which, brings me to a New York Times media column several weeks ago, suggesting that local television was on the comeback trail.
The conclusion of the Times writer is based on the expansion of news at one station in one market, St. Louis, leading me to believe that dope use must be rampant among employees at the nation’s “newspaper of record.” The article certainly failed to meet the motto of “all the news fit to print.”
Anyway, the deterioration of local TV news can be traced back three decades ago at the beginning of an era of chit-chat happy newscasts. “Live From the Eyewitness Newsroom,” was an intro heard around country. It was the age of television consultants, an assault on broadcast journalism led by Frank Magid and Associates. Short stories, blood and guts, no substance.
Now, having ridiculed the “Eyewitness News,” I must confess that the best seven years of my four-decade long reporting career were in a station using the banner. In the 1980’s, WBRZ in Baton Rouge developed a reputation as one of the best television news operations in the country, and I was a prime beneficiary—collecting two Peabody awards and two dozen other major national journalism prizes. In fact, when CNN came calling on me in 1989, I didn’t want to leave. However, the cable network gave me 135,000 good reasons to leave—50,00 more than “Eyewitness News.” Good thing I left, too. My departure and other personnel changes in the newsroom sent WBRZ’s journalism spiraling into a nosedive. What I see on its newscasts today embarrasses me.
Indeed, when people ask me if I’m the guy who once worked at Channel 2, I have to bite my tongue to avoid lying. And being a self-righteous sonuvabitch, I’m also tempted to deny being a former CNN correspondent. Like WBRZ, watching the granddaddy of 24 hour news is an embarrassment.
By exercising control over my gag reflex, I did watch Wolf Blitzer interview Donald Trump a few days ago. This was before Trump cancelled his plans to moderate a debate by GOP presidential hopefuls because nobody cared, especially the candidates. Who gives a damn what the loudmouth braggart has to say about presidential politics? If Trump ever had any political bona fides—doubtful—they were buried under an avalanche of idiocy during his birther campaign.
The ”in-depth” CNN interview was remarkable because Blitzer, a smart and intelligent journalist, seemed intimidated by Trump. He almost cowered when “the Don” took issue with questions. Trump had free rein to sound like an out of control Ann Coulter, the fish wife of the far-right. If nothing else, Wolf’s interview made me glad I no longer work for CNN.
Bottom line. It’s no wonder the country’s political dialogue is like listening to inmates babbling in an insane asylum. A large segment of our society is either too lazy or too stupid to read newspapers and rely instead on television news, the Internet, or the blathering of radio personalities of the Rush Limbaugh ilk.
Ignorance is good news to media magnate Rupert Murdoch. But should large numbers of people start buying newspapers, Fox News—aka the Republican Propaganda Network—would soon be out of business.
And if CNN continues its race to the bottom of the journalism barrel, the network won’t be far behind.
My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger: A Saga of Exposing TV Preachers, Corrupt Politicians, Right-Wing Lunatics…and Me is available at amazon.com, soft-cover or Kindle and at independent bookstores like the Cottonwood in Baton Rouge. It offers $19.99 worth of laughs and much more. The book is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) investigative reporting career. jblisscamp@aol.com.
John, You nailed the subject squarely on the head. Now do you have some solutions to offer? There are those of us who would like to have real news unfiltered so that we can make intelligent decisions and actions based upon the information offered in real news: print and otherwise.
Stories involving Ann Coulter are almost as rare as stories on a half-term governor.
Is the deterioration of TV news a result of or playing to the diminishing intelligence of the general population? Half the population is below average.