Is TV news journalism or entertainment?

Great Debates
1

In a discussion with a friend, we discussed the differences in newscasters when TV was young versus today.

I take as a given that TV news has to pick and choose what events will be covered, how they will be covered, by whom, and how they will be presented.

However, it seems in the days of Ed Morrow and Walter Cronkite, the focus was on presenting the who, what, when, and where without necessarily explaining the why. Viewers were provided facts and left to make their own opinions. If a segment did not fit this category, it seemed the program went out of its way to label the segment as an “Editorial” or “Analysis”.

Nowadays, it seems like TV news focuses more on the entertainment and analysis of the news and less on the who, what, when, and where. The stories seem to focus on the attention grabbing headlines and endless analyis. The teasers leading up to the news have become cliche (“Your drinking water is deadly and is killing you. Details at ten”). Events seem to take on a life of their own as each program tries to find a different angle and report ad-nauseum even when there’s nothing new to report.

Is TV news journalism or entertainment? Should ethical and responsible news programs provide who, what, when, and where (facts) and leave it to the viewers to draw their own conclusions?

2

First off, Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite came from, and practiced, two entirely different schools.

While Cronkite was a straight-down-the-middle type, Murrow was definitely an interpreter and analyst. That may not have mattered much in World War II, when he shared the mass of public opinion, but it certainly was in evidence with the “Harvest of Shame” documentary and his McCarthy documentaries.

The debate over what journalism is goes way back before TV. In fact, there’s a strong argument that journalists can’t be “objective” so they might as well put their biases out front where we can evaluate them honestly.

At least into the 1970s, TV journalists would have liked to have you believe that they were in the Cronkite mode. However, the very nature of the medium (stressing the visual) led to a story selection different from what a newspaper or newsmagazine might have chosen. Also, the nature of the audience (tending to watch with one eye while doing other things) led to shorter stories, more sensational “attention-grabbing” language, emphasis on celebrity and personalities, and other tricks that lead people to call the reporting biased or sensationalistic.

Of course, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. How many people actually watch the News Hour on PBS each night? Walter Cronkite for awhile hosted CBS’ morning show, which featured a puppet. And Murrow said of his work on Person to Person, "I do the show I don’t want to do so I can do the show I want to do (CBS Reports).

Is it bias when a consumer or investigative reporter blows the whistle on a bad guy without telling you he/she investigated ten other complaints and didn’t find anything?

Is it pandering to the lowest common denominator for all the Princess Diana coverage when there were literally thousands of people who cried as if she were a member of their own families? Or is that reporting on a true cultural phenomenon?

Do the networks have too much news on subjects like health? Or is it because their research says that older people watch the news, and older people are interested in health news? That would be providing a valuable service, wouldn’t it?

These are decisions that news directors and TV news producers face every day, and there’s no easy answer. After all, it’s easy to say you won’t be a slave to ratings, but what good will nobility do anyone if no one is watching?

I understand all the words, they just don’t make sense together like that.

3

Every human activity is practiced for the purpose of entertainment. :cool: