What’s News?
“And that’s the way it is, Thursday, September 15, 2022.”
His voice was distinctively his and his alone. His manner was calm, serious and trustworthy. Even when telling us of President Kennedy’s death he somehow managed a composure that belied his inner heartbreak. Walter Cronkite, CBS News anchor from 1962-1981, was a fixture in many households during two of the most significant decades of our recent history, epitomizing what news reporting should both look and sound like. On that rare occasion when he editorialized, as he did in questioning America’s continued involvement in the Vietnam War, it was with caution and professional humility. Hence he prefaced his February 27, 1968, commentary with the disclaimer that his analysis was “speculative, personal, subjective.”
Cronkite wasn’t our only news voice during these years when America redefined itself as a—or dare I say the-—global superpower in the decades after World War II. Depending on your network preferences you could be just as well served by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley on NBC (1956-1970) or by the youthful Peter Jennings at ABC, a favorite of mine during my high school years. In fact I credit my nightly habit of watching Jennings in giving me an edge over some of my non-news watching peers when discussing current events in U. S. History class.
In thinking about this time and the people who were most responsible for delivering the news to our three-network, TV-captivated generation, I can’t help but compare their approach to what is commonplace today. And it is captured in a phrase that is now commonly used by broadcasters trying to entice us to watch their particular version of the news:
“Here are the stories that we are working on for tonight.”
What a revealing choice of words, indicating that news broadcasting is now much more than reporting events that have just happened or alerting an audience about what may be imminent. But it certainly does appear as if many in today’s news media are in the business of storytelling, of weaving events and opinions together in such a way as to create a narrative that they want us to accept as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Now before I travel too far down the road of what this seems to be implying, I must admit that I hold no fanciful notions that journalism, in whatever medium it operates, is a pure and unbiased enterprise. Nor has it ever been. “All the News that’s Fit to Print” is a masthead that any newspaper, radio or television news service can honestly employ, since the “fitness” of what is covered depends on a number of non-negotiable realities.
· Is this news likely to pass the smell test of credibility, or is it more on the order of rumor, possibility and opinion?
· Is this news anything that anyone who buys our paper or listens to our broadcast cares about, or will it cause them to stop buying, listening and watching?
· Is this news likely to bring an approving nod to those sponsors, underwriters, and advertisers who are paying for us to print and broadcast, or will it antagonize them and cancel their support?
· Is this news of such importance—to us and our audience—-that it deserves more attention and airtime than the thousands of other items we might otherwise cover?
· Is this news something that will enhance the general welfare of our customers or so infuriate and demoralize them that it brings harm to society and shame to us?
In other words, every bit of news we have ever received or ever will, whether it be in the form of pamphlets and tracts, papers, journals and magazines, radio, television, cable and internet communications is both subjective and slanted. It is subjective in that it is the creation and interpretation of people who, like all people, bring a personal and specific perspective on what they look at and how they perceive the world around them. And it is slanted because it reflects the worldview, the values, opinions, and priorities of the people who are paying for its dissemination. In that sense, every news item, in our telling, is a story, a narrative of what we want others to believe is true and trustworthy.
In an ideal world those reporting the news should be directed by those investigative questions that may yet still be taught to aspiring journalists: what, where, when, who, how and why. I’ve listed them along a continuum of objectivity, what, where, and when more objective inquiries open to the verification of witnesses and the omnipresent lens of video cameras. Who often requires a bit more detective insight, owing to the ease by which identities can be mistaken, and the skill of some people in evading discovery. Yet the data trails left by the ubiquitous tracking devices we’ve invited into our lives make it increasingly difficult for any of us to achieve anonymity. But how and why add an element of reflection, logic, intuition and supposition in answering. It is upon these questions that narratives are crafted and spin is generated in turning simple news reporting into story telling with plots, characters and anticipated or desired outcomes.
Over my lifetime “the news” has changed, not only due to the evolution of the media by which people like to be informed, but by changing attitudes about the purposes and ends of news reporting. Print media ruled the day from the colonial era through its hey day in the 19th and 20th centuries. It still is the preferred means of information by many of us who yet derive comfort from reading the morning paper with coffee cup in hand. But newspapers have been in steady retreat before the onslaught of the more immediate, visual, and fast paced television and digital media. And I understand why. Reading takes time and demands of us an investment of both thought and imagination. Not so for the news we can watch and hear on any of the different devices accessible to us whether we are at home, moving on foot, on a bike, in a car or plane, or even lying in a darkened bedroom. None of these requires much beyond our being turned on, tuned in, and only marginally alert to what is being broadcast or posted. In fact, the pace and clipped nature of the digital information that is jack-hammered into our heads round the clock has likely contributed to our ever-shortening attention spans and to our naïve confidence in how much our sound-byte recognition of names and slogans translates into genuine understanding. It may get us through multiple-guess exams and rounds of Jeopardy, but it will leave us dim-witted and dumb-founded when faced with questions and issues that can’t be drawn in black and white or explained in monosyllabic answers.
There was a time when television networks offered a clear distinction between the what, when, where, and who information handled in their half-hour nightly news broadcasts and the opinion pieces left to the Edward R. Murrow’s or Mike Wallace’s they featured on occasional investigative news programs. Such times and distinctions are long past, I’m afraid. Now we expect any and every news show to offer unabashed spin and slant that speaks to the increasingly parochial audiences they can count on to be watching and listening. While an occasional bi-partisan round table may be featured on network and cable news, these often generate more heat than light as dialogue too often degenerates into contentious argument.
I guess my greatest concern about the way news is presented and delivered today lies in what it says about us, the 21st Century body politic. Have we become so uncomfortable with intellectual disagreement, so averse to the thought of issue complexity, and so shallow in the depth of our knowledge of historical precedence that we are happy to settle for simplistic distillations of important issues couched in generalizations or tinged with invective? Not that long ago the presentation of news from national networks aspired to be fair and balanced, the tacit assumption being that a thoughtful citizenry could be trusted to make good choices when accurate information was honestly presented to them. Today however, much of the news is delivered, not as a public service intended to provide audiences with the facts they need to decide what they will choose to believe, but as forgone conclusions meant to be swallowed by those eager to sate their parochial appetites. When the line between news and opinion, fact and propaganda becomes so blurred, so difficult to confirm or deny, then each of us is left to fend for ourselves in a no-man’s land of uncertainty and mistrust.
Since I’ve entered the less structured daily universe enjoyed by millions of retired persons, I have had more time to pay attention to what constitutes news these days. But, given the reservations I’ve been describing in the preceding paragraphs, I find myself intentionally watching, listening to, and reading across a spectrum of news reporters and producers, hoping to find truth somewhere, somehow seeping through the sound and fury of many divergent opinions. I am enjoying the challenge of parsing out the veracity of the well written prose that can be found in such diametrically opposed journals as the National Review and The Atlantic. And I must admit that some news anchors, like Bret Baier and George Stephanopolus, commend my respect, especially when herding the cats they’ve assembled for one of their panels of experts. But I am sobered by the realization than an EMFH (every man for himself), or in this case, ANSN (any news that serves the narrative) ethic seems in play almost everywhere.
Since the medium really is the message in mass communications, we are fast becoming consumers of news we expect to be delivered to us as quickly and as conclusively as possible. And since nearly all news outlets openly pitch their stories to ideologically and politically partisan audiences, the reporting of news is often indistinguishable from the parochial narrative in which the “facts” are woven. One would be hard-pressed to find any “no-spin zones” among today’s news agencies, even though I have been recently encouraged in the discovery of a throwback online newsletter, The 1440 Daily Digest, that provides me with a rather neutral presentation of global events and interesting scientific and cultural novelties. It has been for me a breath of fresh air each morning, even its title—the year the printing press was invented and the number of minutes in every one of our days—-suggesting something worth my attention, and possibly yours too.
Perhaps the best way I can bring these reflections to a close is deferring to the opinion of one of broadcast journalism’s seminal figures, the aforementioned Edward R. Murrow. War correspondent, radio and television pioneer, his work continues to challenge and inspire all of us who believe that the pursuit of truth remains the noblest and most essential of our ambitions.
