| Giving up on the news channels |
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"We have analysts for every conceivable subject "By Ken Reynolds kreynolds@bigcanoenews.com 
Ken Reynolds
I miss newspapers. They left ink and newsprint residue and I always felt the need to wash my hands afterward reading one. The cleansing ritual made my spirits feel a little lighter — and perhaps cleaner. Washing my hands doesn't remove the residue from exposure to a television news session. News is news whether it is print or broadcast, but with a newspaper I did not have to endure endless nonsense about a balloon boy hoax, six advertisements and interminable teasers before moving to the next story. It is hard to skim or skip television news stories, and the commercials are so good who would dare ignore them. I was excited when Ted Turner introduced a 24-hour all-news channel, but I did not accurately anticipate its future. I am without a printable term to describe what around-the-clock news has become, so I will say only that a significant part of the broadcast time is not news. After decades of dependency on newspapers and a few years in news channel thrall the present pervasive inanity of the broadcasts has driven me to the Internet. I am not addressing this criticism toward the network evening news programs. My concerns are about the "news channels." Their bias bothers me, but unbiased news coverage is a myth. There was partiality in the first news report and there will be in the last one. No matter how objective a reporter tries to be, some information cannot be included in the report. Writers, editors, publishers and corporate staff all shape publications and broadcasts to fit the slant of their particular media outlet. One of our special American blessings is that we expect and permit different points of view, and we are fortunate to have multiple news outlets with no official filter or censor. Three specific issues have driven me away from television news. Two of the issues are focus and content. The news channels focus on American national politics and celebrities of any ilk. Turn on a news channel at a random time and the subject — if it is not a commercial — likely will be politics or the political implications of whatever the subject happens to be. I am not questioning the value of that focus. I do question why when a rock star or former nude model dies, a celebrity is on trial for murder or a weather balloon inexplicably lifts a six-year old into the sky the news coverage focus shifts entirely. It shifts to the extent that the new event — or non-event — usurps politics as the focus of the channel and dominates programming time as if everything else has ceased to matter. Content irritates me as much as focus. My list of irritants is too long to print in full, but competing for first place are analysts and strategists. It does not take long to report the facts of most news events, but after the event the anchor recaps what happened. Then a group of talking head experts spends long periods of time analyzing, dissecting and spinning what they, and we, just saw and heard. We have analysts for every conceivable subject and strategists who make sure their party's position is presented. I appreciate 24-hour news. Timely information about so many important events, including the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, has justified my early enthusiasm — and arguably should outweigh my concerns. My unease is not about coverage of news events. It is about what is on the screen in the interim between important events, the similarity of content on the channels and the small amount of time devoted to the rest of the world. Mark Bowden, author of Blackhawk Down, addressed similarity of content in an intriguing article The Story Behind the Story in the October 2009 issue of "The Atlantic." Network reporting staffs and news services like Associated Press, UPI and Reuters were once the source of news, but the source is changing and whether the change is for the better is debatable. Even more disturbing is the growing prominence and popularity of Al-Jazeera, especially the English language edition. I have seen and heard prominent political figures refer to the quality and conciseness of content on Al-Jazeera, and to its growing presence in the English-speaking world. Informed Americans — especially "news channel" executives — should take notice of the differences between what American "news channels" and Qatar based television are broadcasting. My third issue is commercials and it is entirely personal. I recognize what pays for the broadcasts, but I made a mistake and compared the number of minutes devoted to content and the number of minutes devoted to commercials. About 99% of what is advertised I no longer want or need, but I do want and need to do something else with my time. So I get 99% of my news from the Internet. |
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