Remember “journalism”? I have this vague recollection from the distant past that it was an occupation with standards and a noble calling, but I may have been confusing reality with Spencer Tracy and Kate Hepburn movies. Unfortunately, right now television newscasting (and the New York Times) is doing it’s best to flush what reputation it had down the sewer, and is doing so at the worst possible time.
At least we’ve still got Samantha Bee and a few print journalists doing their best to do what journalists are supposed to do.
I bet there’s a book somewhere that discusses the corrupting influence of television “news” and the crappy 24 hour “news” shows on good journalism.
I guess one good thing about the internet is that it’s killing off the old media establishment. Then, the new media will implode when everyone finally starts running ad-blockers. The problem is, then what?
The inimitable Charlie Brooker made a programme about it back in 2007 (albeit focused on British news reporting)
Sure, how could I forget. I’m married to one. She would take exception to conflating journalism with television newscasting, because your right, I think, about TV’s “corrupting influence.” There are plenty of descent journalists around, but television is how most people get the form of entertainment they call “news” and all the propaganda that comes with it. The answer to all of that is turn off your TV and read news from different sources. I’m sure that’s what you do.
I think it’s primarily one movie, specifically Woman of the Year, where he plays a sports writer. A fine film and somewhat advanced for portraying a woman with international political influence. On the other hand, there is that last damn bit where Hepburn does her finest Lucy and the long-suffering Spence rescues the day, as the men always have to do. (There is another where he plays a journalist, Keeper of the Flame (1943) but I’ve never seen that one.)
Marcus…”internet is … killing off the old media establishment.” Maybe, but old media has moved very quickly onto the internet. And the primary new media is Fox News, so I’m not sure we’ve won much ground.
“primarily one movie, specifically Woman of the Year,”
all I thought of was His Girl Friday. about a female ace reporter (dot)(dot)(dot).
yeah, too many TVnews have become “shows”, where news is presented as a form of entertainment; regardless of the relevance to the viewers. We watch to be shocked, scared,horrified, disgusted,etc.
we are awful for buying the products advertised during such programs. That’s why I prefer PBS NewsHour where commercials are unnecessary. Regardless of any correlation between product sales and news commercials, the fact that advertisers sponsor News, looks real suspicious.
That must be why Jon Stewart so sarcastically did those “insults” at Arby disguised as product placement.
(Morning Jo, comes to mind *smirk*)
All Things Considered (PBS) for me. thank you very much,
Ta-Nehisi Coates:
Even NPR on Monday morning was talking about the optics of Hillary’s comments and whether or not it was a gaffe and what the poll numbers show and blah blah blah… OK, she said something provocative. Can we talk about why she said it? Can we talk about whether it’s TRUE or not, and about the polls that support her assessment of Trump’s base? Can we talk about how his voters compare to her voters vis-a-vis prejudice? And about how his voters compare to previous GOP candidates?
No. All we get is wonking about optics and gaffes and fart-in-the-wind variations in poll numbers. No analysis, no insight, no assessment of the content of the candidate’s speeches.
Politics reporting is indistinguishable from sports reporting now. Just numbers and strategies, as though elections were just an entertaining pastime with no real impact on human lives.
I don’t watch American TV New, well I don’t watch any TV News as I don’t own a TV but it seems even more infantile than ours in Canada and I exclude Fox as it is not really a new channel so much as fantasy land for nutty right-wingers. Why cannot a TV journalist actually ask a hard question? Or even do some real analysis? Ta-Nehisi Coates has the right of it.
On the other hand a lot of US print journalism seems very good if we ignore things like NYT’s mad support for the Iraq War. Or, actually, most US media’s support. Five minutes of checking almost any media source outside the USA would have shown that the claims of WMD in Iraq were total lies.
For a refreshing approach to TV/Radio journalism I recommend the BBC’s Hardtalk. I don’t know enough about UK politics to know just how hardhitting it is but difficult questions seem to be asked and the interviewers seem to be very well briefed.
After reading this post and watching Samantha Bee, I was listening to The Takeaway on NPR on the way to work today. They had a story that initially had me worried: it started with covering the coverage of what Clinton said, with bits about what a gaffe it was, and how it would effect her in the polls. But then they actually questioned that reporting and asked why no one was asking the important question: is what she said true? Then they reported the facts, and questioned why others were not, and even included quotes from the Ta-Nehisi Coates piece.
It was refreshing, because I have yelled at the radio many times in the past several months (I don’t watch TV). This time, I just said, “Well, okay then.”