Posted on 09/24/2004 7:42:16 AM PDT by qam1
Days are numbered for 6 o'clock news...
Try as I may, I am unable to conjure up a single shred of nostalgia for the once-fabled network evening news programs. Walter Cronkite is a name to me, not a symbol of reassurance or stability. Edward R. Murrow is a historical figure.
As for the hallowed idea of "the six o'clock news," it means nothing: In my adult life, I've never had time to watch the daily news at 6 or 6:30, at least not with any regularity. When I watch television at all, I switch without any particular loyalty from CNN to Fox to C-SPAN, depending on who is doing the talking, and I feel reasonably cynical about all of them.
I hasten to add that I am not writing this because I believe my viewing habits are interesting -quite the contrary - but because I suspect that they are typical, and growing more so all of the time. There is little to be said about the amorphous post-baby boomers -anyone born after about 1960 or so - but it's pretty clear that as a group we have no emotional attachment to ABC, NBC and CBS.
The networks have known this for a long time and have therefore spent much of the past decade trying to get us to watch news programs to which we don't feel loyal. Flashy videos, human interest stories, jingly music - none of it has worked, and indeed their effect has been the opposite of their purpose. When the big three effectively stopped covering political conventions, the nation collectively shrugged - and changed channels. C-SPAN and PBS viewership spiked this year. During the Republican convention, Fox got the biggest audience of all.
It's only in this context, it seems to me, that the Dan Rather-fake letters fracas marks a fascinating turning point. Otherwise, it's a pretty run-of-the-mill scandal. Journalists have been fooled by fake documents before - remember "Hitler's diaries"? News organizations have been slow to acknowledge obvious mistakes before. What was striking in this case was not what happened or how CBS executives initially reacted but the language used by Rather himself. Faced with criticism, Rather took the position he thought he, as a national icon, had a right to take: He dismissed his critics as "partisan political operatives," and spoke of how CBS "took heat during the McCarthy time, during Vietnam, during civil rights, during Watergate." He attempted to defend the "truth of the information," as opposed to the authenticity of the documents, as if the two could somehow be separated.
What became clear, as the story wound down to the inevitable apology on Monday night, was that Rather and his fellow network newsmen are stuck in a Vietnam/Watergate-era time warp. Most of us regard network anchors as faintly pompous talking heads, people who read other people's prose off teleprompters. But the anchors, rather extraordinarily, still regard themselves as the conscience of the nation. They aren't mere "journalists" who have to use authentic documents to prove their allegations but rather people whose fame and large paychecks and unchallenged power entitle them to some kind of automatic credibility, even if their documents are fake.
I'm sure we'll see this episode as the final collapse of network television's dominance over the news, and the final triumph of something else, something that is in some ways better, in some ways worse. On the one hand, the media are reverting to a more combative, pre-television norm, a time when partisanship was normal and you picked up your newspaper in the morning with a clear idea of the writers'opinions - which did at least allow you to compensate for them.
On the other hand, in this more competitive, post-television age, partisans expend a great deal of energy fact-checking others, and have more outlets on the Internet, on the radio, in the press and on TV for their findings. You don't like Rather? Click on http://www.ratherbiased.com. You don't like Fox? Read Al Franken.
Much has been made in the past few years of the networks'"liberal bias." More dangerous, it seems to me, was the fact that the networks held a virtual monopoly over the most powerful form of communication. By its nature, television news has had far greater influence on politics, particularly national politics, than any newspaper or magazine could dream of. For that reason alone, more viewers watching a wider range of channels has to be better for the political health of the country.
I expect the death throes of network news will be long and drawn out, and there will be tedious weeping and wailing while it happens. But once it's gone, think of all that might go with it: the stories that are simultaneously pompous and superficial, the atmosphere that is at once grave and silly, the too-famous faces, and the too-brief stories. With any luck, the really good television journalists will survive and migrate elsewhere - and the rest of us can channel surf until we find them.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social aspects that directly effects Gen-Reagan/Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
I think this author is right on. Nobody would care so much about liberal bias if it weren't for the fact that the MSM has enjoyed such a monopoly, and to some extent still does.
I once watched an interview with Jack Anderson, in which he made a great deal of the fact that the MSM acted as a check and balance on the government. Someone asked him who then served as the check and balance on the MSM. He was unable to give a coherent answer. Today, we have that answer.
I must say that watching CBS Evening News for Dan Rather's memo rantings and defenses was the FIRST TIME I've watched broadcast evening news in EONS.
First of all (other than that I know it's liberally biased and I can't stand ANY of the bloviating anchors), it airs at 5:30 p.m. where I live, and I'm rarely home by that time due to the fact that I'M WORKING MY A55 OFF TO PAY TAXES.
When I DO finally want news, I tune in to FNC. If there is a breaking story, I already have FNC, MSNBC, and CNN programmed into my remote so I can surf from cable news to cable news with one button.
Truly, I'm not sure who even watches the Evening News via broadcast anymore.
Truer words were never spoken. I'm at the tail end of the Boomer thing and evening news has always been irrelevant to my life.
News anchors are just models who can read.
Well, I wouldn't say useless....they DO keep my throwing arm in shape, and now I know how loudly I have to yell to get a reaction out of the cat..
Amen
Good piece. The days of the network anchors as beloved national institutions are long gone, but Rather and his ilk still expect that kind of treatment and automatic credibility.
Save it for the Dallas Cowboys games......
I composed a vanity on the topic of journalism and First Amendment freedom after 911, and from time to time I post comments (often linked to later threads) to it. The interested reader is invited to survey and comment on the results, on this thread.Such is the power and duration of the propaganda campaign which supports the fatuous idea that we are "entitled to the truth" that it took me well over 50 years to see through it. We are only entitled to our own opinions--and to spend our own money to try to propagate our opinion, and to ignore whoever bids for our attention unsuccessfully.
Broadcast journalism is unnecessary; the Constitution was designed without the first thought of the possibility of its existence.
And since a broadcast license is essentially a title of nobility, broadcast journalism is also illegitimate.
Before my two sons went to college we tried to have dinner together each night, in the kitchen with the TV off and talking to each other. We were one of the few families that my sons knew that did that. They felt it was so "Leave it to Beaver." To do this I had to get home earlier than many peers, and we needed to have a late dinner so it would not interfer with after school events (sports, music, etc.) That meant we usually at dinner around 6:30 or 7 pm. Nobody was home to watch the 5 pm local news or to watch the 6 pm news. By the time the family got around to watching the news it was over, except on one of the cable news channels.
Similarly, a growing tend has been news at 10 pm so folks can watch some news and still get a good nights sleep.
I think that the weekday 6pm national/international news is a dying beast, just as I feel that newspaper readership is dropping off.
When I have a moment of free time, I check on what is happening via the internet.
This article is right on the money. Its mostly the elderly who continue to watch the Big Three. Those of us who were introduced to Reagan as a President and not an actor however rarely watch TV news
ROTFL!
May you utilize firearms with the same accuracy as your post.
Well, I do go to the range a lot!
Good.....Everyone IS entitled to their OWN opinion, but No One is entitled to their own FACTS.......Dan.....
RUSH: "Ordinary people, sitting at home, with computers, were able to deduce in two hours that CBS was perpetrating a fraud on the American people.
"...ordinary Americans, using average, ordinary, everyday American products, a computer, a telephone line, American written software, have brought down one of the most powerful and unassailable institutions in the history of American media."
Completely spot on. Since I started surfing the web around 94, I don't think I've seen more than 5 NBC/CBS/ABC nightly news broadcasts. I don't get my news from newspapers (at least not the printed kind). For 3 of those 10 years I was TV-less, but still better informed than probably 90% of the people out there.
I grew up with my parents faithfully watching the CBS evening news everynight, so it's not a foreign concept to me. Just that in my adult life, I don't follow that pattern anymore.
The only cable news channel programmed into my clicker is Fox. Sometimes I watch MSNBC to get my heart rate up.
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