Real News is Better Than Ever
Recently Ted Koppel wrote a column in the Washington Post basically lamenting the rise of news pundits and the death of “real” news.
He says,
“We are no longer a national audience receiving news from a handful of trusted gatekeepers; we're now a million or more clusters of consumers, harvesting information from like-minded providers”.
He is referring to Americans’ tendency to flock to the news pundits that have come to dominate news media today, and only watch those that confirm their pre-existing beliefs.
It’s true that long gone are the days when the family would gather around the warm glow of the television to be fed whatever news the network deemed palatable. News media has become much more decentralized. If you include the major networks, cable television, web sites, and blogs, there are literally millions of potential sources for news. It’s also true that many Americans choose to ignore them in favor of watching a few talking heads who allow them to further entrench their beliefs rather than encourage them to consider a variety of perspectives on any given topic. But the fact that so many people refuse to seek out an alternative viewpoint speaks more to their own lack of initiative than to the notion that there is somehow something wrong with the way that modern news is being delivered today. Real news is more available than ever to those willing to seek it out. And though some would say we have become a nation of dittoheads (to borrow the term that describes the masses nodding along with Rush Limbaugh), that doesn’t mean that Americans would be better off if their news was instead filtered by a gatekeeper at a major network. Because to be an advocate for allowing just a few gatekeepers to deliver the news is to be an advocate for limiting the number of opportunities that Americans have to stay informed. And when finding a new perspective is as easy as changing the channel, the answer is not to limit the number of sources we have for news, but to encourage Americans to take better advantage of the many opportunities they have to broaden their base of understanding.
But many of us are indifferent to the notion that there might be an alternative perspective worth hearing, and instead just take for granted that our favorite pundit has the correct viewpoint. The fact that we seem to hold their opinions in such high regard shows a lack of understanding of why the news pundits are on T.V. to begin with - money.
There is an old saying in the news business,
“News is what happens between the commercials.”
Nowhere is that more evident than with the business model that has led to the rise of modern news pundits.
Some, like Ted Koppel, would believe that delivering the news should be a semi-altruistic endeavor that shouldn’t be tainted by financial motives. While it would be nice if this were true, this is pie-in-the-sky thinking. The truth is that the news media, must earn money in order to justify the efforts of everyone involved. So the reason that news media exists at all is to generate revenue by serving as a vehicle to distribute advertising. And this concept is hardly new. Even before our country existed, when Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richards Almanac was dispensing sage advice, he was running ads on the back pages for his Franklin Stove. He was motivated to deliver a quality publication in part, because he wanted to sell more stoves. (And the stoves didn’t even work well, but that is an aside). Later, in the 1890s William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer were the publishers behind the yellow journalism that riled Americans and instigated the Spanish-American War. And sensational journalism survives today, as evidenced by a modern expression commonly heard in newsrooms, "If it bleeds, it leads.”
We need to stop holding the news pundits in such high regard and see them for what they really are; entertainers. At the end of the day, they are no different than your favorite actor or singer. The pundit who doesn’t put on a good show for their audience will be replaced by someone who will. So they are driven to say what they need to say to keep the ratings high, drive ad revenue, and stay on the air. It may sound cynical, but each news pundit really only has one goal; to keep their job. They’re like politicians that way.
Doing so means catering to the beliefs of the specific audience demographic that their show is designed to focus on. While some audience demographics are similar or may overlap (i.e., Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly’s) in aggregate they reflect the different segments of American politics. There are a lot of viewpoints, so there are a lot of pundits. The list includes Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Dylan Ratigan, Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity, John Stossel, Geraldo Rivera, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. Each has gotten their own slice of the television news audience. And while each show focuses on its own niche demographic with the intent of making money for their network, at the same time they provide us with easy access to varying viewpoints, and give us the ability to see what the “other side” is thinking. We should be taking advantage of this opportunity, if only to strengthen our own arguments and our own beliefs. And that’s exactly what the brightest Americans have been doing, and should continue to do.
It would have been nice to see Ted Koppel recognize that the torch has been passed to a new generation of news people, rather than wax nostalgic about the way it was. He ends up sounding out of touch, or like a caricature of an old-timer who says “Back in my day…” The problems that confront this nation are enormous, and Americans need to tackle them by gaining an understanding of all sides of the issues. Ted Koppel is at the end of his career, and while he may lament the loss of the traditional news anchor role, those of us who still have skin in the game need to deal with the world we live in today. It would be a mistake to legitimize the fairy tale notion that things would be better if our news was filtered by a few gatekeepers. The decentralization of news is a form of democracy, and it lays the foundation for the herculean effort we’ll have to put forth if we are to overcome the enormous problems that we face as a nation.
