Suppose a respected journalist was made a news anchor, and cut through the sensationalist crap and teasers and whatnot? Instead he would deliver the news without slant or gratuitous commentary. Granted, the corporate bosses would have a hard time with it. CNN journalists are forced to remind people every five minutes that CNN is the Worlds Most Trusted News Source. But let’s assume that this journalist had enough clout to do it his (i.e. Cronkite’s) way.
Do you think that viewership would increase (due to honest reporting), decrease (due to the lack of sensationalist reporting), or stay the same?
Odds of that happening are near zero. When Cronkite retired there were 3 networks and newspapers and radio for news. The last 2 were mostly local news. Now we have 24 hour TV news and 500+ news websites. Also many people have decided they like slanted news so that is all they want to hear or read or see.
The 6:30 newscasts may not last much longer, right now their audience is older people and getting older.
Jon Stewart exposes far more bullshit than Cronkite or Murrow ever did. And he encourages his viewers to be very skeptical of the media, especially including Jon Stewart and The Daily Show.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are both geniuses, but I’m not sure what they do fits the OP’s vision. They are satirists, not journalists, no matter how many people use them as sources of news. I know they’re horrified that anyone would see their shows as anything but comedy and commentary, no matter how spot-on or valuable. And despite his voice and presence, I’m not sure Walter Cronkite’s anchoring or any other newscasters’ can be devoid of any spin or slant. They and their producers are only human.
I’m not sure how this sort of novel news throwback would work in the US. It seems to work quite well in Canada and the UK, at least on the news stations I’ve seen (and some even have relatively bias-free lady anchors!).
Already, in this thread ,we’ve seen posters who think Jon Stewart is Walter Cronkite.
Meanwhile, there are millions of people who’ve embraced Fox News.
What makes you think EITHER of those groups will ever go back to watching some hypothetical perfectly objective network news anchor?
Both the Left and the Right have abandoned the Cronkite model, and have ebraced a news source that makes them happier. Both the Left and the Right think they are now getting the REAL news. NEITHER side is looking to go back to CBS news.
Here’s a good discussion of theWBBM-TVnews experiment back in 2000. The short answer is that viewership sank like a rock.
It’s worth reading for the comments of the consultants, however. They say that modern TV viewers expect shorter stories, visual impact and so on (i.e., sensationalist crap, teasers and whatnot) and otherwise they’ll tune out.
For more current examples look at CNN Headline News. A few years ago, it was news, weather, sports and business updated every 30 minutes. Now it’s HLN and mostly unwatchable.
Even the Weather Channel. It’s summer. I’m in the Midwest, it’s the middle of the afternoon and thunderstorms are popping up everywhere. I turn to the Weather Channel and get reruns of When Weather Changed History.
I think we’re seeing a repeat of 19th century newspaper publishing, when every town had a Democratic newspaper, and a Republican newspaper. The concept of objective reporting is relatively recent.