It's the Death of Network News as We Know it: Welcome to the Heyday of News Reporting
By Joel Gunz
Gunz Communications
Originally appeared in Vox
The bubble-headed bleach blonde comes on at fiveShe can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam in her eye.--Don Henley, "Dirty Laundry," 25 years ago.
Ever since that first bead of sweat spurted onto Nixon's lip in the 1962 presidential debates, media critics have been lamenting the sodapop-ization of TV and print news. According to these critics, what's at stake is U.S. citizens' rights to be reliably informed about current events. You'd think it was the end of news as we know it. In a way, it is. And, frankly, it's not a moment too soon.
At its best, TV news allows viewers to get breaking news stories instantaneously -- complete with words, sound and moving pictures. The downside, though, is that those reports are written to conform to one editorial "voice" and are delivered over a one-way medium that leaves viewers with little opportunity for response -- or challenge. When Walter Cronkite declared, "That's the way it was," he didn't leave much room for a second opinion. As a result, TV's greatest strength -- its ability to deliver a rich narrative -- is also its greatest weakness.
Likewise, what newspapers lack in terms of sound and video, they make up for by giving readers the chance to stop reading, to reflect, and to compare one news story against another. But, like TV news, it's a one-way medium. And while both of these media purport to be objective, they are actually unrelentingly subjective, reflecting the bias of the reporter or the news organization that's delivering it.
It's just as Marshall McLuhan declared. The medium is the message. That is, each communications medium possesses intrinsic attributes that shape the stories it delivers.
Pure objectivity is a grail that journalists, philosophers and Zen students have all pursued. Yet, species-wide, it seems to elude us. That's why, in the long run, Big News can only fail to satisfy. It can't fully deliver on its promise of objectivity. Nightly news might give us the facts, but its record for delivering truth is spotty.
What's more, by its very nature as a mass medium, TV isn't equipped to encourage independent thought. The Internet, on the other hand, is, perhaps, the best medium ever invented to stimulate free thinking.
With its multitude of voices, it's possible to go online and get a much richer and nuanced account of current events than a single news anchor could ever deliver. The Net may not be objective; but, with its plethora of voices, it offers an antidote to the dualistic red-versus-blue ideological trap that traditional media too often falls into.
By this measure, the Internet is the best thing that could happen to media news. It still isn't purely objective. But to describe it as simply subjective is to misunderstand how users experience the Web. To coin a phrase, it could more accurately be called a multi-jective news and commentary platform.
The current multi-jective media environment forces audiences to be skeptical and discerning about the information they choose to accept. News and commentary providers must exert themselves to earn their respect -- and monetize that content -- by delivering reportage and analysis that is intelligent and credible.
Of course, accuracy is one thing, but ideological bias is another. And traditional media is hardly immune. Because it reaches an aggregate audience, TV, print and radio must deliver content that is simmered down to an "average." As a result, consumers have a vanilla or chocolate choice of either "liberal" or "conservative" news. Again, the Net can help.
Thanks, in part, to an amazingly robust online presence established by traditional news agencies, there is now solid ground on the Web in which smaller, independent voices can operate and gain traction to offer alternative perspectives.
True, you can find plenty of lone bloggers cranking on about the "9/11 conspiracy," but you're only a mouse click away from more credible insights found at such sites as Slate or Salon. And no elected official worth its fundraising team goes without writing a blog. The days when the Internet was an out-of-control misinformation orgy have gone the way of the Wild West. The Web is maturing and we are now in a new heyday of news and public affairs.
Case in point. The current issue of Harper's magazine featured a controversial expose of Washington D.C.'s powerful lobbyists. In this article, journalist Ken Silverman went undercover to report on lobbying firm APCO's willingness to represent unsavory political interest groups to members of Congress. Powerful stuff. It was also highly charged with ethical issues. I wanted to see the backlash.
I went online and easily found Silverman's follow-up to the article at Harpers.org. That story linked to the audio transcript of the NPR phone-in show Talk of the Nation, in which Silverman and an APCO representative battled it out on the air. Pretty cool. But I hadn't had enough. From Harpers.org I clicked through to APCO's website and read the lobbyists' official response to Silverman's piece. And then I clicked over to a public relations blog that described one PR professional's reaction to Silverman's having "punk'd" (his word, not mine) the lobbying firm. I clicked to a streaming video of Silverman's PBS interview with Bill Moyers. With a few flicks of the wrist, I had an incredibly deep, 360-degree, multi-jective view of this contentious issue. And I hadn't even Googled it yet.
Walter Cronkite, eat your heart out.
