« King of the blues | Main | Sad premonition »
January 30, 2006
If it bleeds, it leads?
Ted Koppel, late of Nightline, had a terrific piece in the op-ed section of Sunday’s New York Times. It appeared under the headline “And Now, a Word for Our Demographic.” Koppel wrote that television news was in “decline and distress.” Gone, he wrote, were the days when “the audience for network news was made up of everyone with a television set” and networks protected their news divisions from the pressures of the market so they could do ambitious reporting. I can’t link to the whole piece because the Times considers it premium, meaning paid, content, but here are excerpts that convey its essence:
“Most television news programs are . . . designed to satisfy the perceived appetites of our audiences. That may be not only acceptable but unavoidable in entertainment; in news, however, it is the journalists who should be telling their viewers what is important, not the other way around. . . .
“Right now the main agenda is to give people what they want. It is not partisanship but profitability that shapes what you see. . . .
“Now television news should not become a sort of intellectual broccoli to be jammed down our viewers’ unwilling throats. We are obliged to make our offerings as palatable as possible. But there are too many important things happening in the world today to allow the diet to be determined to such a degree by the popular tastes of a relatively narrow and apparently uninterested demographic.”
The struggle Koppel describes has its counterpart in newspapers. More than ever, economic conditions press editors to give the readers what they want. What should be our lead story: new efforts to preserve open space in New Hampshire or the day’s testimony from a lurid murder trial? The governor’s State of the State message or the local teacher caught stealing money?
In each of those pairings, we know which story will attract more readers. We know which one, placed at the top of page one, is likely to lead to a slight bump in newsstand sales the next morning. But which has more substance? Which should – as opposed to would – matter most to readers?
We know which strories attract readers not just from intuition and experience but from a new tool: our online edition, on which we can track how many readers call up particular stories each day. Partly these numbers are driven by the display on the front page of the web site. Our online editors are not obliged to follow the choices we make on the actual front page. They generally give good display to what they think will draw the most readers and lesser display to stories like State of the State addresses and land conservation. Overwhelmingly the Monitor’s online readers choose mayhem, celebrities and sex over politics and policy.
Does this mean we should alter our news judgment on page one on the printed paper? Many papers are doing it. If you haven’t checked out the Union Leader lately, give it a look. The UL’s front page has gone whole hog into the “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality that guides local television news.
As editor of the Monitor, I’ve got my finger in the dike on this trend. Sure, we cover crime and fires – it’s the news – but it is important to resist the tidal wave of sensationalism in the news business. When I see a Union Leader front page with a story lineup that includes a rape, a murder, a police chase, a fire and a sex scandal, my first thought is that this page does not mirror the state I know. It’s probably wishful thinking, but I also wonder if the public really has an appetite for this and only this.
I hope you can find a copy of Koppel’s thoughtful commentary. His subject is television news, and in the piece he lays out an interesting short history of that particular institution. But Koppel’s concerns apply across the spectrum of media from which you get your news every day.
Posted by Mike Pride at January 30, 2006 10:33 AM
Comments
I do not envy you your position...but I do appreciate it. There are many of us (I have to believe that)out here who are still trying to educate ourselves to the nuances and concerns of our community, our government and our nation.
The only way I know of to fight the trend is to pass the knowledge on ...to all who will put up with me.
I really don't think that people don't care. I think that peoples lives are so filled with work,stress,money problems and just plain exisisting,there is no energy left for anything other than that which titilates or entertains.That which is easy and takes no thought. Certainly no energy for opposition or involvement.
Or....we are witnessing the results of the dumbing down of America?
Posted by: Joan at January 30, 2006 07:18 PM
Of course news is somewhat dumbed down. The populace loves American Idol, reality TV, and all that terrible music that wins Grammies. But to say America is "dumbing" is a little off. The "little people" (proles, hoi polloi, etc) have never been interested in what you might consider "sophisticated" news. If anything, the populace is far more sophisticated than it used to be. But now they own cable, and they factor into things.
If Koppel said, "in news, however, it is the journalists who should be telling their viewers what is important, not the other way around," then I think he is wrong. In fact, neither the viewers nor the journalist should be in charge of determining what is objectively considered news. That is not in the journalist's job description. Who should determine this? I don't know, but I know that we shouldn't be confined to journalists or the populace. As the system is right now, it is a combination of the two: what the journalists think is important combined with what the populace thinks is important (i.e. what sells). In the U.S., it is an adequate result.
It is interesting to think of this debate as it relates to scientific peer-reviewed journals. They fall under similar pressures. Albeit they have a more-educated readership. But still the system is flawed. Studies with "negative results" are less likely to be published than those with "positive results." For example, a study that says ˜Chemical X does not cause cancer in rats" is far less likely to be published than one that says the opposite. And thus the scientific literature presents a skewed picture of what things are like. One cannot ascribe this to "pandering to the masses." We must realize that "the little people" are not solely responsible for biases present in today's news.
Posted by: skoody mcgugin at February 14, 2006 12:01 PM