"All that is old and already formed can continue to live only if it allows within itself the conditions of a new beginning."
Media Priorities
Posted 10:55 p.m., August 28, 2006
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I got an e-mail from a liberal friend of mine this evening, asking me to sign a petition to demand something better from the television news networks, which I guess translates to more Iraq, less JonBenet. Actually, this is a form letter with text taken from the petitioning Web site, so I'm not worried about violating confidences by publishing it here.
The idea has tremendous appeal to me personally, but like so many noble efforts, it just looks like another quixotic mission for some bummed-out activist types.
I didn't sign the petition. Instead, I answered my friend's form letter. My response was just cynical enough for me to decide to post it here—with a few elaborations.
The form letter (along with a link to the petitioning Web site) and my response follow:
...
Dear Friend,
I have just signed a petition that requests the media to report on issues that are truly important to all of us.
Last week, guess which story topped the national evening news on ABC, CBS and NBC? JonBenet Ramsey. It wasn't the war in Iraq or the tenuous truce in Lebanon, the killing in Darfur, or even 10 million kids here at home who lack health insurance. It was JonBenet.
Please join me by signing this petition to head news anchors so that your voice will also be heard: http://action.truemajority.org/campaign/reportrealnews?rk=qp_urr91QmfHW
... Dear Friend,
Good luck.
But first, let me correct you. Ten million kids with no healthcare is not "news," anymore than it's news that 275 million Americans woke up this morning. It was the same yesterday as it is today, and will remain the same tomorrow. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—in motion in Washington, D.C., or in any of the state capitals other than Massachusetts to do anything about that. So the media doesn't spotlight the uninsured day in and day out. Add 10 million more uninsured kids overnight, now, that's a news story.
It's the same reason why the networks didn't focus on the thousands of airliners that landed safely today, but instead on the one jet that crashed. That's the nature of news. It's unusual, it happened recently, it's got people's attention. None of this means that 10 million kids without insurance merits no attention, they do—and they get attention, even if not nearly enough. But things move, events unfold, and editorial choices have to be made.
To satisfy you, it sounds like the media would have to make a point of reporting on this issue every day, at the expense of other important matters. And if they did that, it wouldn't be journalism, it would be advocacy. And that's not what the news is supposed to be.
You refer to the "media," but apparently you mean television alone, since newspapers do cover all these things and there is no shortage of coverage of them on the Internet, nor in magazines like Foreign Policy, the Atlantic, National Geographic and the Economist. If so, "the media" is not likely to respond to this petition in the slightest way. You might make yourself feel better by signing it, but you'll be ignored. Demographically, TV broadcasters know the types of people who are likely to sign a petition like this are types of people who make it a point of pride not to watch much TV. So what's in it for them?
More importantly, they have made a science of gauging what people who do watch actually want to watch; JonBenet is a reaction to that market demand. I can't stand it personally. I scream and yell at my TV almost every time it comes on. But I'm not in their preferred demo. On the whole, if TV viewers were denied the JonBenet story—or even if it was played down—believe me, stations would be hearing from the people whose opinion they really are sensitive to—their regular viewers.
One of the things I learned when I worked inside TV is that TV is fundamentally an emotional medium. It is not "cool" like print. You might think that would mean Darfur would register as a couple of million times more emotionally stirring than JonBenet, but strangely, that's not how people work psychologically. Of all people, Josef Stalin came closest to capturing the essence of this component of humanity, sickening as it is to credit him with anything. Stalin said, "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
Noble though it is, this petition assumes that media executives have a practical choice. Technically, yes, they could choose another path. They could also choose to slip into the noose.
True, if there was a little less influence of corporate bean-counters and a little more influence from civic-minded executives, then, yes, there probably would be a little more attention paid to Darfur, or other areas even more critical to the national interest—the ignored Islamist time bomb that is Uzbekistan, for one example. That would be wonderful, not to mention in the public interest.
But the "public interest" is an anachronistic concept; what we're left with is the marketplace. The kinds of choices we're talking about haven't been exercised by network television bosses since Ed Murrow's CBS took on Joe McCarthy in 1954—and Murrow was acting as a loose cannon. It's no accident that Murrow got shoved toward the door for that "See It Now" broadcast. It crippled his career, even if people like me worship him for it. Thing is, there ain't too many people like me out there with posters of Ed Murrow on their office walls.
Here's the problem with your effort. You're petitioning the wrong people. You need to petition viewers.
Modern broadcast journalism responds to the demands of its audience. To do otherwise would mean the network would go away. And if you don't believe me, tune into the Dumont network. Never heard of Dumont? No, it's not on cable. It's nowhere, even though It was the first officially licensed TV network and the first to broadcast live to and from the Midwest. It introduced the world to Jackie Gleason, the sit-com and the televised soap opera. It's extinct.
If people wanted what you want them to want, there would be more ongoing coverage of these issues that you think are getting short shrift. People don't. You can be mad about that—I'm sure not pleased—but how do you change it? Do you make the media force feed it down people's throats? Refer back to the history of the Dumont network. (OK, it's true. Dumont got screwed out of existence by the FCC. But let us not let facts stand in the way of a fine false comparison.)
Anyway, so what if TV doesn't play these things up? The Internet is becoming more and more ubiquitous, reaching nearly as deep into all economic brackets as television itself. People can find these things if they want them.
The problem is that only the educated, the affluent and the activists seem to want them anymore. Blue-collar folks no longer gather the family around the dinner table and Walter Cronkite every night, the way my truck-driver dad did. Newspapers are bleeding subscribers. The working poor today are too busy eking out an existence, working two or more jobs for pay that can't even keep up with inflation, just to keep the lights turned on. They aren't going to worry about Darfur. They're not even going to worry about their hometown, at least not until they bust an axle on a pothole. When they're resting, they want distraction. They want entertainment.
Certainly, no one is accusing TV of failing to serve up enough of that.
I don't disagree with you in principle, and I don't even think you shouldn't be part of the petition. It's just that there is little or no hope it will make any difference. Even if it did make an impact somehow, then you'd just wind up stirring up your polar opposites to launch their own petition complaining that the liberal media is spending too much time showing how bad things are in Iraq, Lebanon, even Darfur, and that it should pay more attention to the pro-life movement, the Christian missionary movement and over-taxation. You'd be balanced out.
After all, we're all just one big special interest group now.
Good luck again. If Brian Williams writes you back, say hi for me.
-- Kevin Featherly
