Network news in a contest tonight with cable (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

ABC News is clearing its slate of prime-time entertainment shows tonight to make room for Charles Gibson, Diane Sawyer and live wall-to-wall political coverage.

On CBS, Katie Couric and newly hired political analysts such as Joe Trippi will supplant action-adventure drama, while NBC pre-empts one of its highest-rated series for Brian Williams and Tim Russert.

With 24 states up for grabs on Super Tuesday, the networks - bolstered by rising interest in the primaries - have suddenly become super-serious about covering presidential politics.

But instead of singing the praises of ABC, NBC and CBS News, analysts see their efforts tonight as being too little and too late amid a widespread change in viewing habits. Experts say that rather than being a moment of high civic responsibility and glory, tonight's coverage serves as yet another landmark moment in the erosion of the dominance once enjoyed by network TV.

Network news, which once owned the airwaves when it came to presidential politics, now finds itself scrambling to try and catch up to 24/7 cable TV and upstart Internet outlets. The latter have come to dominate coverage of one of the most important elections in American history - an election that the public cannot seem to get enough of.

"Look, these networks are in business to make money, so they are not giving this last-minute, wall-to-wall coverage on Super Tuesday because they suddenly got religion about the civic importance of covering a political campaign," says Mark Feldstein, a professor of journalism at George Washington University. "They're doing it because they think they're going to make money."

The dramatic art of news in crisis.

Competing With the Internet

In war and in peace, television news has developed a highly structured approach to the way stories are told and, for that matter, in deciding which stories are told. The emergence of the Internet has created a new culture, and television news, fearful of becoming an anachronism, has rushed to be part of the process. At first blush, this makes sense, since the computer user and the television watcher have similar experiences: both look at electronic screens and both are exposed to two potent phenomena—instantaneity and limitlessness.
But the differences between the computer and the television are rarely examined. Using a computer is an “active” experience, since the user controls what is flashed on the screen, what length of time it remains there, and what comes next. Watching television is fundamentally a “passive” experience, assuming that the average viewer would prefer not to constantly switch among three or more news programs. The viewer cannot shape or control the experience without resorting to the “change channel” or on/off button.
Paradoxically, television is trying to remain relevant by appropriating the techniques of the computer, while ignoring its unique qualities. In so doing, television news is delegitimizing itself. It deepens the problem by insisting that all stories must have an arc—a beginning, a middle, and an end that is clear and, if possible, have a touch of inevitability, as great stories often do.
The problem here lies in the difference between literature and journalism. Describing the requirements of drama, Chekhov famously observed that a gun seen on the mantle piece in Act I had better be fired in Act III. No such requirement applies in the real world; the gun sometimes goes off, sometimes not. In its natural and commendable desire to present the news in a dramatic form, television conflates simplification with clarification, and in doing so it refuses to acknowledge a self-evident truth, that complexity and confusion are often intrinsic to the story being told.
Driven by ever-tougher economic imperatives, seduced by the digital marvels at its disposal, motivated by an enshrined notion of what an audience wants to see, and fearful that nuance and ambiguity will drive that audience away, television news is at war with itself. What it tells is too simple; what it shows is too complicated. Television journalists have debated and agonized about these questions for a long time. I recall one newsroom discussion many years ago in which a colleague concluded, to universal agreement, “Look, you can’t look down on the American people.” But that is exactly what has come to pass.
Marc Kusnetz, a former NBC News producer, is a freelance journalist and a consultant to Human Rights First.

We're not winning this game, no matter how often we tell ourselves we are.

Many FReepers seem to hold an unrealistic expectation for mass media to simply fade into oblivion Thursday next. Political technology takes decades to come to fruition. By the same token takes it decades for said political technology to finally fade into oblivion. You can blame too many vested interests in the status quo on all sides of the aisle.

IMHO today's conservatives follow in the footsteps of conservative forebearers in fighting the mass media political machine originally invented by FDR. Today's conservatives face a much brighter future than those long gone conservatives ever dreamed of. The Spirit Of Allegiance recently made a salient point that American politics morphed into a conversation.

The Cluetrain Manifesto
(just substitute “Political Party” whereever it reads “Company”)
95 Theses
http://www.cluetrain.com/

Opening Pandora's Box changes American politics forever. Perhaps only a few on the fringes see the full implications of this paradigm shift with its inevitable future. Note how our political opponents give big sloppy kisses to new media events such as Yearly Kos.

Great post. Chekhov was talking about writing stories, where the author has control of what’s going on (more or less). But real life is messy and you can’t always tie up “loose ends.”

Local news is always telling us their little liberal human interest stories about how some down-and-out person got help from this organization or government agency. These stories don’t ring true to us because they plead for continuing some liberal cause. The self-made man is no longer the hero; the helpless victim is put on a pedestal to be revered.

That’s why people like shows like “Kitchen Nightmares” or even “Flip That House.” They prove that sound business practices work if they are followed, and hard work and innovation will help you get ahead and be successful. They really go against the grain!

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