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What's Wrong With the TV News
MBCook writes "Technology Review has a fantastic seven page piece titled "You Don't Understand Our Audience" by former Dateline correspondent John Hockenberry. In it he discusses how NBC (and the networks at large) has missed and wasted opportunities brought by the Internet; and how they work to hard to get viewers at the expense of actual news. The story describes various events such as turning down a report on who al-Qaeda is for a reality show about firefighters, having to tie a story about a radical student group into American Dreams, and the failure to cover events like Kurt Cobain suicide (except as an Andy Rooney complaint piece)."
I'll sum it up in one name.
Paris Nicole Spears
Seriously, I really don't give a fuck. If I did I would purchase tabloids. How about some substantive reporting on actual world events? Or if you still have time to fill, some factual information on the presidential candidates. Like, maybe some stories on what they actually believe and have a record of voting for, so the public will be more informed and can make better decisions. Not stories analyzing who is ahead by 3% in the latest poll in what states or who has the best chance of winning. That only breeds bandwagoning subject to the control of the media. This is of course exactly what they want though, which is why we will continue to see no stories with real factual content, and simply sound bites.
The internet is much better as a news vehicle because I can actually find stories with real content which complexly explore the issues. Apparently the news networks think that no one's attention span is greater than 1 minute and 30 seconds, so they mandate that no stories should be covered in depth. Occasionally there are multi-hour specials on certain things, but apart from that, there is rarely regular substantive coverage of important goings on.
...is becoming more and more like Slashdot?
Misleading Headlines, Irrelevant Stories, Flamebaiting Comments: you heard it here first!
Solomon Chang
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
...Kurt Cobain?
You can read more in one hour, than a newscaster can speak in one hour intelligibly.
So news is all soundbites.
The guys making decisions are few, and they are all political animals. Even the more liberal ones like Jon Stewart use their airtime to make political points. Television has become prescriptive, a way for the rich and powerful to tell us what to think. It's more noticeable in the U.S., I think, because both major parties have converging interests when it comes to issues like Al Qaeda, Iraq, etc. Big network TV in the U.S. is bordering on propaganda. I can recall one attempt by the Canadian Conservative government to play along, banning images of Canadian military caskets from the media. Thankfully there was a public outcry, and the decision was soon reversed. Unlike the Republican government, the Conservatives have a minority government and must make concessions to the Opposition on a regular basis. This is not a problem in the U.S., and I don't expect that we'll see a more empathetic viewpoint on major network television before Bush is out of office.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
People should call into Stewart to suggest that he come back on the air and does a straight news show until the writers return.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Did you hear Kurt Cobain was on the TV? ...and on the carpet, the walls, the furniture...
What's wrong with TV news? It receives Nielsen Ratings. That means they are not treated as informational, but rather as entertainment and require audience share (in the eyes of those who watch the "bottom line").
And I'm not the only one who thinks this. There are papers about this very subject.
Jory
We are once again experiencing the century-old practice of Yellow Journalism. In fact, I would say that media's role in how the Spanish-American War was sold to the public is disturbingly parallel to that of the invasion of Iraq, just with Karl Rove at the helm instead of William Randolph Hearst. What we think is this new medium of "infotainment" is simply an update of sensationalism.
Unfortunately, history and civics education in the US are so atrocious that I would not expect many Americans to remember any of this, making us doomed to repeat mistakes from a hundred years ago.
the comments are fair and balanced!
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
I have worked in and around newsrooms from college on and I know, firsthand, where much of the problem lies. Journalism, that is, the finding and reporting of facts, has little to do with a journalism major, which is primarily interested in "the proper form." As the article says, "the emotional center," or, more specifically, an insulated and insular group of people attempting to capture the attention of the audience.
There was a study done on mid-level news markets about eight or nine years ago, and what they found is that reporters have a lot in common with one another. They tend to rent, not to buy. (This is quite understandable, as "two weeks notice" doesn't happen in news; more often a person finds out of Friday that they don't need to come back on Monday.) They tend to live in the city rather than suburban or rural areas. (Again, understandable given the commute.) They tend to be single rather than married (stability issues again) and use certain services more than others-- transit, fitness centers, and so on. The upshot was that the necessary living patterns for reporters-- again, not big-city reporters, but mid-market types-- meant both that a certain point of view was attracted to the lifestyle, and that the point of views of the people involved would necessarily change.
And that viewpoint-- we're not talking political here, though it does play a role-- agrees with 2% of the wider US population. Two percent.
Or in other words, the viewpoints of 98% of the population are foreign to the average reporter. Moreover, the average reporter is your typical person, which by and large means the vast majority of them are, basically, lazy. How many of you just get through your day, doing the basic minimum that your job requires? Well, imagine what that's like as a reporter, when you don't have somebody breathing down your neck to report the facts, but instead have them breathing down your neck to "find the emotional center." That reporter's going to find the emotional center, and is almost certainly going to do so using a mental template (Insert Issue A into Slot B and add Cute Kid/Pet/Quip at end.) You end up with lazy reporting.
Lazy reporting gets you those stories about farmers that always seem to imply that they must be hicks, or slow, or obsessed with "weird things" because they aren't smart/hip/normal enough to move to the city, like "real people." Or the ones that as what [X racial group] thinks about a subject, as if a vast group of people who share a few alleles must have similar opinions. Or, in the most common template of them all, the good little underdog against the evil corporation/city council/religious group.
Why do I get my news online? Because a well-done story, linked back to source documents and complete transcripts, is yards and away from "San Francisco tiger mauls two and kills one; blood and guts at eleven" (past teasers and grainy footage and the obligatory Horrified Bystander.) I know what news is, and I don't confuse it with reality-entertainment.
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
A pretty good piece.
But it's not new. You can go back to Aleister Crowley complaining about the press (and he was a "celebrity" who constantly ended up in the press) being a bunch of hacks with an agenda - and that was back in the late 1800's. Hitler said the same thing except he blamed it all on the Jews.
Some years back former CIA director William Casey publicly said that ALL the mainstream media was either owned (through fronts) or controlled by the CIA. He wasn't joking when he said it.
I see nothing on the air to discredit that statement. Quite a few people have pointed out that large numbers of (supposedly) "ex"-CIA analysts are doing the writing and editing for most of the major media - even including some of the (supposedly) left wing "alternative" media. The excuse is that CIA analysts are good at producing concise, condensed recaps of analytical material - which makes them great journalists.
Except as General Gogol said, "Nobody ever leaves the KGB."
And once you get beyond the CIA, you've got corporate interests - and beyond, corporate stupidity - and beyond that, personal incompetence and stupidity.
How "news" could survive that chain of barriers without being completely useless is beyond me.
Look at today - we've got a bit of "news" coming out of India that supposedly Benazir Bhutto was shot with some kind of laser gun!
Right. I'll buy that for a dollar. More disinformation to confuse the matter, so that anybody who thinks she was killed by the Pakistani government looks like a "conspiracy nut".
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Might I recommend highly the Newshour with Jim Lehrer to all readers?
The program features actual experts. That don't yell over each other. Each has time to form a response to questions. It's amazing, astounding, the best TV news available, period.
What's wrong with TV news? They have to sell commercial time, so they air only the most sensational stories. Or the spice real news up to be sensational in order to sell commercial time. What's wrong is they claim to be in the business of providing news when they're really in the business of selling commercial time to advertisers. And the need for many viewers to watch these commercials are the reason for the sensational news.
Slashdot is about as guilty. See repeated stories of "bricking" where no devices were irrecoverably harmed, that is, "bricked".
Question everything
Slashdot has nothing on dupes compared to the headline news ...
... 'Will we get snow tomorrow?' I'm guessing you could've told me in the time you toyed with telling us before every commercial break, making us think it's going to be on right after the commercials, but saving it for the LAST thing. I'm surprised they haven't tried 'Are tornados coming and should you run for your life? Find out next!'. Nope, we can go straight to the article, discover the article summary was completely inaccurate and/or misleading, without having to sit around for 45 minutes.
Well, so long as it involved interns and politicians. I can't remember how many times the news seemed preoccupied with Chandra Levy, Monica Lewinsky, or whatever mostly unimportant event that got covered each day with slightly new 'breaking' information. If you want that, you have to go to Digg to see what each 'breaking' website has on the latest Apple rumors.
At least Slashdot doesn't do the completely useless teasers
It's crap like this why I don't watch the TV news anymore. I do listen to news on the radio, and they do the same thing, but I get traffic reports every 10 minutes, which is important in the Washington, DC area -- I just don't listen to it for 2 hrs straight, or I know I'll hear the same stories repeated.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Here in Australia, we have one network that is government funded and does not fall victim to any form of sensationalism.
The Australian Broadcasting Commission, ambiguously referred to as the ABC, is entirely funded by the government and therefore has no interest in ratings. The news and current affairs coverage is usually top-notch, although occasionally it demonstrates a slight left-wing bias.
I switch to Channel Ten, and I see Sandra Sully cutting to some recycled footage while talking about some cloning technology, and concluding the story with "Of course, human cloning is still many years away." Then, they use computer effects to duplicate Sandra Sully, and the two Sandras say in unison.. "or is it?".. followed by 15 minutes of someone rambling on about "Entertainment News", followed by a cut to the loud and annoying weatherman who spends more time advertising charities than talking about the weather, then cut back to Sandra Sully who will engage in some useless banter with the sport guy. And the sports report is just a veiled advertisement for the sports programme they have on later that night, and then they do some "Australian Idol" news, and finish up to pictures of the beach.
ABC is at least a safe haven of real journalism. I'm not even sure the people working at Channel Ten are even journalists.
Sorry but the failure to cover that story was pretty much right on. It wasnt of any significant importance. I was a fan of his but even can realize the fact that it was pop icon news and nothing more.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Those stats are from 2006. After another year, that probably means there's only 25M or fewer viewers. Half the number from 1982. But the rates are much faster than they inummerately describe (they watcht too much TV to be good at math). 1M of 25M is a 4% drop in 2006; the 1M drop in 1983 was a 2% drop. And since the US population was about 230M in 1982, but 300M now, we're talking about a drop from about 22% to about 8% of the population tuning in. Which is a drop to almost one third, in case you're wondering.
That one third still watching TV is probably mostly the same people as a quarter century ago, now glued to sets in their nursing homes, unable to change the channel. And the stats don't even address the number of people who now don't just mainline the nightly news as the gospel truth, but also cross-reference with the Internet, including actually discussing the news on blogs.
The news has never been a good business for the broadcasters. It was just jammed into their commercial offerings to justify their use of the public airwaves and all kinds of other subsidies they get, and to make the rest of the "messages" (advertisements and the propaganda disguised as "news") more respectable. The rest of their programming makes more money in the ads that's their only real product. So they'll be glad to call it quits once no one is interested in holding them to any kind of "public service" any more.
As soon as about an hour or so of actual news is clickable YouTube on my bigscreen TV that my friends have all recommended, I'll be happy to let them get away with finally just canceling their shabby efforts.
--
make install -not war
For Pete's sake, people, remember who is the customer in the "TV transaction".
It's NOT the viewers. It's the ADVERTISERS.
The advertisers pay the stations to wave their products in front of X number of eyeballs. The television shows (and yes, that includes news shows) are simply the bait to keep X at the highest possible number. The programs are NOTHING MORE THAN BAIT. Since the presence of bait+advertising is zero-sum (ie more bait means less minutes of advertising to viewers), then the ONLY tactical goal of the studio is to make a show that will keep a person watching even when the bait is taken away (commercial breaks).
Keep that in mind at all times, and you'll find that watching TV, while occasionally entertaining, quickly becomes repulsive.
-Styopa
One of the major problems with TV reporting is that the costs of doing real news worthy reporting for a 5 minute on air segment is astronomical compared to just calling up some "expert" to talk about what they think happened. And as it turns out, the pundit probably scores better for most demographics (ie. they look better, sound better).
We saw this happen (again) with the run up to the Iraq War where it would have taken months of reporters actually doing the research and tracking leads to develop a story that many people would find uncomfortable if not right hostile. The alternative is that they call up some retired military guy and ask him "What do you think is going on?" Almost every news source in the US opted for the cheaper pundits than the expensive reporting and we got exactly what we paid for.
Watch BBC news coverage of America. They're far worthier of that appellation than any outlet in the United States, and they also mostly don't give a crap which political party or corporation they might offend by reporting the facts. As an additional plus, they are the one media operation that Rupert Murdoch can't buy and subvert.
It seems many other Americans agree, because the BBC news seems to have grown from being on only one channel (BBC America) morning and night, to four.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
As a Brit who has traveled extensively in the USA (visited 48 of 50 states) since 1975 and worked for an American Company for 20+ years I have seen US TV News really dumb down over the years.
Lets take this example.
At the time of the first Gulf War, many National Guard Units were being called up. I was on Holiday in New Orleans and the TV News had around 50 minutes (including ad breaks) devoted to the departure of National Guard units to bases where they were replacing the troops who were on their way to the Gulf. Note the coverage was all about the NG units not the regular forces leaving to fight. Lots of weeping relatives and yellow ribbons were shown.
At the end of the News, there was a 15 second piece about the Resignation of Maggie Thatcher ( British PM). Given the Britain was sending many thousands of soldiers/sailors & airmen to the gulf to fight alongside the US forces, I felt almost insulted by the coverage given.
The coverage of the Current US Election(Iowa etc) is quite widespread on UK Broadcast Media (TV & Radio). We are aware of the implications that a change in the occupant of the White House can have on Global stability etc. I wonder how many US citizens are equally aware given the predominance of coverage of 'Celebrity' has on US TV. I was in the US a couple of months ago and was amazed at the amount of time given to what I call Celebrity PAP rather then serious news items. This is IMHO dumbing down.
Personally, I don't give a about the antics/sex/drug/etc habits of so called Celebrities. But I'm at the age where I can be a member of the 'Grumpy Old Men' club (Excellent BBC TV Series).
You've hit a pet peeve of mine there, and I don't know if it's even racial.
The thing is, it's not only ghetto kids. A lot of white adults too seem to have jumped on some sort of a "computers are too complicated, I don't have time for that nerdy crap" bandwagon. Even as more and more jobs require at least elementary computer skills, it's become more and more unfashionable to admit having even those minimal skills.
And it's not just believing that they can't handle it, and giving up without even trying. A lot do try, see that they can, then try even harder to hide that from their peers. I've seen people who _can_ handle a computer when they're alone, turn into helpless illiterates when there's a witness there.
We scared off the normal people, if you will. It's become a thing of pride to be as far from nerdy as possible.
In fact, in some circles it's become fashionable to be stupid. Cue a downward spiral as each member tries to not end up in the upper 50% of their group.
It's kinda funny. Human culture for _millenia_ respected intelligence. If you look as far back as the ancient Egyptians, a little known fact is that they actually had a phonetic set, but it was seen as a thing of _pride_ to be smart and educated enough to use the hieroglyphs. A relatively common form of flattery was to address a letter "to your scribe", meaning, basically, "I know that you can read it yourself and are your own scribe." The Greeks and Romans took pride in being able to read, write and master such subjects as administration, law, rhetoric and philosophy. (Which back then was _the_ science.) Etc.
Even the middle ages, weren't that dark a time in that aspect. There still were plenty of people trying to do alchemy, astrology and philosophy, which back the was what science _was_. Sure, it looks like ignorant and pointless compared to the modern scientific method and the later figures of the Renaissance, but nevertheless, those people were trying to figure out how the world works. Or there were advances in technology that we don't even learn about these days. The physics of the great gothic cathedrals and their mess of buttresses, are nothing short of amazing when you consider that they didn't even have a proper notation for that. Sure, it's trivial nowadays to calculate the vectors and see why it works, but that someone came up with that back then, it's amazing.
And again, noone considered it shameful to be seen in the company of an astrologer or alchemist. It was a thing of pride, in fact, and even kings and bishops made sure to have one around.
If you look as late as the 19'th century and early 20'th, the explosion of science was partially because people actually took advantage of the increasing opportunities to get an education. We have a whole category of "absent minded scientists", which were really nerdier than most people on Slashdot nowadays, and noone thought it was a social disgrace to be seen with one.
So where did we go wrong? How did it become fashionable to be the most stupid of one's peers?
How many potentially brilliant minds are we losing to that fashion? E.g., the ghetto kids you mention, some of them could become great scientists, and one or two might even discover the next great thing. But they don't, because their peers would mock any kind of academic interest or achievement.
How much is this costing us, as a society? And how long until it bites us all in the arse?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.