Journalism And TV: An Oxymoron?
In my How To Save The Newspaper post I promised I’d get to TV. I’m still working on it. But where I’m going is hinted at in a Jeff Jarvis Buzz Machine post today:
Journalism and TV: an oxymoron? Well, not always. But often. Local TV news has sucked for years – that horse is out of the barn, over the horizon, and in the glue factory already. Fluff and fires, that’s most of local news on TV. So what is [FCC Commissioner Michael] Copps lamenting?
The local broadcast business is going the way of newspapers, only a bit behind and more slowly and without all the attention of self-obsessed print reporters. So what’s to protect?
Local TV news still has, amazingly, the trust of its audience. And it still makes money. So there is a business there. Too bad there’s just so little journalism there.
Do we really consider what local TV news stations do journalism? Do we really trust TV news that much? Those numbers are impressive. Higher than newspapers or the Internet.
The Jarvis post is about a report hinting that the FCC may be moving towards requirements for stations to provide journalism in the public interest and possibly with government support.
Says Jarvis:
I don’t want the FCC to do anything that has anything to do with journalism, news, and speech. It’s a bad idea.
That before moving on to saying that the FCC could “get ubiquitous broadband throughout the country.”
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6 Responses to “Journalism And TV: An Oxymoron?”
I dated a girl that produced the local news. 'If it bleeds it leads” was her motto…passed down from management.
Then a little local news.
Then weather.
Then sports.
Then “fluff” to keep people happy.
So no…no journalism being done by local news.
I never watch local news but, can see how it's trusted more because it's still based on the old model of past decades that present a truly balanced and non opinion based news. Just the facts.
Like our national news used to be like.
And they do a better job of educated the public with factual info, even if it is boring stuff about things at City Hall, ect.
If they could incorporate the good things about local news – facts, much less opinion, no right v left talking heads to 'duke it out' segments, no sensationalism and drama. solid news.
A few weeks ago I saw a video on youtube of the death of JFK and Cronkite reporting it. There were others on the side of Abc and Nbc reporting it as well and I looked at it.
that was news that was solid, trusted and factual. You could trust those guys to tell you what was going on with anything. You knew they were solid journalists and did not do anything to pump up drama or sensationalism or make the news into infotainment.
It had real substance and looking at other news from the era, they truly educated the public and gave people substance.
If our news media was like that now, maybe we would not be talking about the death of newspapers and journalism would not be the joke it is today.
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This is a loaded subject for me. I have a hard time trusting any sort of reporter, although I'm sure there are some honest ones out there. I know a reporter/journalist who litterally drugged a woman, whom she thought could become a 'public figure', so that she could get nasty pictures to sell. I've also experienced a press release being altered by an editor who was jealous of my work. And the list goes on. . . And I don't feel that the government should be connected to any more of the media than what it already has control of.
Joe, no matter where you write I hope you bring honesty and integrity into your work. Through these difficult times we face in our troubled world we need more opportunities to build trust in all levels of the media.
Sharone
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This is a loaded subject for me. I have a hard time trusting any sort of reporter, although I'm sure there are some honest ones out there. I know a reporter/journalist who litterally drugged a woman, whom she thought could become a 'public figure', so that she could get nasty pictures to sell. I've also experienced a press release being altered by an editor who was jealous of my work. And the list goes on. . . And I don't feel that the government should be connected to any more of the media than what it already has control of.
Joe, no matter where you write I hope you bring honesty and integrity into your work. Through these difficult times we face in our troubled world we need more opportunities to build trust in all levels of the media.
Sharone
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This is a loaded subject for me. I have a hard time trusting any sort of reporter, although I'm sure there are some honest ones out there. I know a reporter/journalist who litterally drugged a woman, whom she thought could become a 'public figure', so that she could get nasty pictures to sell. I've also experienced a press release being altered by an editor who was jealous of my work. And the list goes on. . . And I don't feel that the government should be connected to any more of the media than what it already has control of.
Joe, no matter where you write I hope you bring honesty and integrity into your work. Through these difficult times we face in our troubled world we need more opportunities to build trust in all levels of the media.
Sharone
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