Chapter Two: In Which I Advise the Media

At the gym tonight the local news was on. The lead story was about Ford dumping 30,000 workers and closing five plants. Then on the same program that carried the story I saw three Ford commercials, each one pushing a big-ass truck, either "powerful enought to haul a boat" or galavanting through the desert. Just the stuff most of us do everyday. Who the fuck is this company listening to? Then I wondered the same thing about the program I was watching.  

Many of my friends rarely watch local news, just as they rarely buy big Fords. This reluctance to inflict nightly pain on our brains isn't just shared by progressives; I know conservatives who complain just as much about the quality of their 6 PM broadcasts. Now, there are a pile of books, some well-known, that document the poor quality of television news, so I'm not going to dredge up a lot of specifics. What I do want to do is offer free advice to our local news directors, because I'm sure they're listening to the wrong consultants. Advice follows.

It's clear news directors graduate from the same schools, attend the same conferences, read the same publications, and hire the same consultants. Why? Because their evening programs all look alike. I live in a large city with several indistinguishable nightly newscasts, but it wouldn't matter if I were in Denver, Miami, Boston, or Seattle - I'd feel at home.

You know what I mean. Begin with the anchors: they look like Stepford dolls who studied Broadcast News seriously - instead of as satire. There's almost always two of them, a good-looking 35ish man and a woman, nice hair. They have big-teeth smiles, sharp shoulders, and nod (seriously) a lot; and there's plenty of happy chatter between the anchors, the sports guy, and the weatherperson. They must be real pals.  

Regardless of the channel, they're surrounded by the same high-tech, polished utopias. There's a bunch of shiny graphics that leap out at you, always accompanied by some Wagnerian moog music. And when one station introduces a new whiz-bang graphic, like the weatherman's panning 3-D presentation, it won't be long until the others have it. (I've noticed there's a lot of standing now by anchors; I guess a poll showed viewers believe standers more than sitters.)  

Next look at the structure: news, sports, weather, and always, always end with a happy story, like a new baby giraffe at the zoo. Within this structure the "content" is the worst, of course, because it's not news; it's titillation, sensationalism, fear-mongering, self-promotion, human interest stories, you name it. If they really did "news," they'd cover stories that affect our lives - like what the city council or legislature is doing - instead of some car chase in Detroit captured by their "sister station's" helicopter. They'd be "investigating" shit that matters, not dry cleaners that are ripping people off. This list could go on forever, but these shortcomings are legendary (recall Murrow's warning) and everyone gripes about them, so I'll stop.

Here's what I can't figure out, though. In my town there are four stations doing the same thing at the same time. I can't tell them apart, and they're all lightweight, contentless crap. They're little more than filler between the commercials. One station usually dominates the ratings, and the others fight it out for number 2 and 3, but there is always that one station at the bottom of this terrible mess.

So here's my free advice for Number 4: What if you quit listening to the same lame-ass consultants, took a flying fucking leap, and did the opposite? What if you hired real journalists, not hairdos, to report real news - sort of a Lehrer Report at the local level? What if you dispensed with the happy talk, cute stories, and car crashes? What if you questioned elected officials and held their feet to the fire, instead of sucking up? Sure, you'd lose a boatload of viewers and advertisers, but you'd gain a lot of new folks who want something different - news! (Not to mention advertisers who realize your viewers are educated - with good jobs.)

We've seen a similar thing with Air America. They acquired inexpensive radio stations whose Arbitron rating was, like, 1, and now they're at 15. Not the largest, to be sure, but they did demonstrate there is an audience for a different kind of talk radio. Would the same thing work for TV news? Would you watch? Or are they just too corporate, inert, and uncreative that it'll never happen? Are they too afraid of pissing off advertisers? What does Number 4 have to lose?