Being in television news right now is a bitch. People I hear from say that unless you go national, and in particular you are one of the three figureheads of the legacy networks (Sawyer with ABC, Scott Pelley with CBS and Brian Williams at NBC), there is constant pressure from your bosses to keep your salary low, or even let you go altogether. The proliferation and profitability of cable talk networks (I initially typed out "cable news networks," but that's just not true) has increased the supply of news jobs, but I'm sure that they pay nothing like reporters in broadcast. And local news is even worse. As someone told me a long time ago, "They like 'em young and cheap." I'm sure most of the reporters I see on the local news, the ones in the field, are younger than I am. And it's possible they make just as much as I do per hour at my current temp job.
The only way to make money is to grab more ratings, and as I had it drilled into me in broadcast journalism class after broadcast journalism class, the only way to do that is to have stories that make viewers tune in. Instead of doing the stories that we want to do (ideal for any reporter) or doing the stories that need to be done (say, for example, the day in the state legislature), you have a narrow list of stories geared for maximum interest. You obviously have to cover the big stories -- elections, disasters like the typhoon in the Philippines, etc. But you have to mix in lighter stuff. The feel-good stories at the end? I'm assuming it's been studied that one way to ensure viewers come back to the news is if the news leaves them on a high note. The last stories are always fluff. Well, maybe fluff is a little too harsh. But stories about a kid's lemonade stand turning into a fundraiser, or even a veteran coming home to surprise his kids at school, aren't as newsworthy as other stories that could be put in there to inform the public. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but oftentimes when I see these stories I think that the 90 seconds, two minutes at the end of the broadcast could have been used to highlight a problem going unnoticed in the nation or the world, a problem that we should know about. I understand that I don't want to be bummed out at the end of the program, but I would rather be that if I am also informed.
Stories covering celebrities have always been news and they continue to bait viewers into watching. That's why shows from Entertainment Tonight to TMZ are popular. I have seen more of those types of stories on the national news only recently. However, politicians have always made the news. In fact, in one of my starter journalism classes I was told that stories about the Kennedys always made the news because they are so popular. And it's true. I believe that news directors and producers have understood for a long time that celebrities have always been great "viewer bait," but they just did not believe that they were newsworthy. However, people who are in politics, or even tangentially related to politics (most notably Princess Diana, who is a member of the intensely-followed Royal Family but nonetheless was miles more popular than the rest of the brood) was good enough, so if there was a fluff piece about them, they would run it.
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I grew up knowing that the news was a mix of the hard and the soft. I was OK with it, even though I thought that, because of the international scope of the national nightly news, they had to cover the important stories, which invariably are more complex and not happy. For the most part I still believe the three national newscasts stick to that credo. But ABC News, under Diane Sawyer, has pushed the envelope -- more like lowered the bar -- on that standard of newsworthiness.
You certainly can't suddenly turn yourself into Entertainment Tonight or even TMZ overnight. So ABC has, more than either CBS or NBC, firmly placed itself in the chasm between actual news and stories that get people watching, interested and buzzing about. It's kind of subtle because the two types of stories Sawyer covers with more regularity than either Scott Pelley at CBS or Brian Williams at NBC are ones that have timeliness and affect everyone: Weather and consumer issues. On the former all three cover them, especially if they are, literally, big, like the wildfires that consumed the Western U.S. over the summer. But if it's stories like, "Wow, it's hot!" only ABC does it -- and more often than not, that will be the top story on a slow news day.
The latter shows the much starker contrast between ABC and the other two from a content standpoint. Consumer stories should be limited in national newscasts to announcements made that day about things that affect a lot of people and are safety issues, such as a new warning about a pill, or a car recall. But ABC frequently creates stories about minor issues, such as ... well, there was a story a couple months ago about someone making allegations that Walgreen's was gouging its customers. Since I go to Walgreen's to pick up my and Father's medications, this was of some interest to me. But it's worth noting that, as far as I could tell, neither of the other broadcasts even mentioned the Walgreen's suit. Why? Probably because, in the larger scheme of things, this was unimportant.
Another stark difference happened on the September 4 broadcasts. Both CBS and NBC led with the latest on the United States administration's efforts to secure support for a missile strike against Syria, before that country agreed to inspections and surrendered their weapons. But Diane Sawyer decided to lead with the suicide of rapist and torturer Ariel Castro. The Castro suicide is notable, but leading the national news? This decision was made only to pander to the salacious viewer who couldn't get enough of the story about three woman trapped against their will for a decade. Our country dipping its toe into violent action in the Middle East is more important in the larger scheme of things, no offense.
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I've also noticed that ABC has aggressively changed itself stylistically. It is much flashier than CBS or NBC. Thus it also is much more superficial and more difficult to take seriously.
Graphics are used when a news broadcast wants to show statistics. They are pretty staid on CBS or NBC. But on ABC there is a lot more ... frills. Arrows and bar charts are spiffed up, sometimes with sound effects added. Also, you'll notice that every story has a headline and note bar at the bottom. The top line is essentially the headline or title of the piece; the bottom gives one detail, just enough to hook you into watching the rest of the story. Neither of the other networks do that. Neither of the other networks feel they need to do that. And they're right.
The most egregious dumbing down of national broadcast news is ABC's "Instant Index," their exclusive C-block (essentially the third segment of the show if you break up segments by commercial breaks) of celebrity segments and, in a trend that's growing and thus getting more annoying, YouTube clips, usually of animals. This is done with a lot of graphics, a lot of them rushing towards you or taking you towards it. And don't forget the bed of music that plays throughout the entire thing. It's all flashy and fast -- and there isn't a goddamn bit of news in any of it.
Even the kickers are more saccharine than they traditionally have been. The worst was a mountain made out of a molehill of a study that no one would have heard or cared about if ABC didn't think it was worthy of a story: People carrying luggage get aches and pains because its weight is more than it should be. So what does reporter (and hot babe) Paula Faris do to illustrate the fact that any bag you hold should be only x percent of your total body weight? She drags a scale to Central Park and asks people to weigh their bags on it. It's your man-on-the-street interview with a prop.
At least with conventional last stories of the broadcast it's about someone doing something good for somebody or his or her community. By actively inquiring about how strangers, and thus us, think about how much our bags weigh (and I'm not saying it's stupid, it's just inappropriate for a national news broadcast), they are pandering to us. All of this foofooraw, in fact -- the dialing back of hard news, the heavy reliance on "sort of hard" news like the weather and consumer issues, the bright and loud graphics -- is pandering to an audience that may or may want to be engaged with lighter, less important bullshit stories. And this all started when Charles Gibson decided to retire and ABC's news division handed over editorial control, with the help of other people, to Sawyer. Seriously, whenever I come home and see that my parents have the TV turned on to Channel 5, I get kind of upset.
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The final straw for me was when I flipped through the channels during each national newscast's A-block (the first segment, the one that runs from the beginning of the show to its first commercial break) and saw that Diane Sawyer decided that one story important enough to begin her broadcast was ... a new study saying that Oreos are as addictive as a drug. Of all the fucking things that are happening in the world, she and ABC News decided that this is good enough for A-block. There wasn't a shooting in some part of the country? No foreign affairs story that's infinitely more important?
Do you know who's doing it right? I like Williams a lot, but Pelley's sobering insistence on covering the news in a professional way for the CBS Evening News is bringing us back within shouting distance of when the national news meant something. Even though Charlie Pierce of Esquire magazine is lambasting CBS News right now (specifically its 60 Minutes for fucking up its Benghazi exclusive), I appreciate Managing Editor Pelley's narrow focus on what people need to know, not just what they would like. Sawyer and ABC News, on the other hand, has turned into junk food news. And as a guy who remembers watching World News Tonight growing up moreso than other of the other two major networks, it saddens me a lot.
Stories covering celebrities have always been news and they continue to bait viewers into watching. That's why shows from Entertainment Tonight to TMZ are popular. I have seen more of those types of stories on the national news only recently. However, politicians have always made the news. In fact, in one of my starter journalism classes I was told that stories about the Kennedys always made the news because they are so popular. And it's true. I believe that news directors and producers have understood for a long time that celebrities have always been great "viewer bait," but they just did not believe that they were newsworthy. However, people who are in politics, or even tangentially related to politics (most notably Princess Diana, who is a member of the intensely-followed Royal Family but nonetheless was miles more popular than the rest of the brood) was good enough, so if there was a fluff piece about them, they would run it.
---
I grew up knowing that the news was a mix of the hard and the soft. I was OK with it, even though I thought that, because of the international scope of the national nightly news, they had to cover the important stories, which invariably are more complex and not happy. For the most part I still believe the three national newscasts stick to that credo. But ABC News, under Diane Sawyer, has pushed the envelope -- more like lowered the bar -- on that standard of newsworthiness.
You certainly can't suddenly turn yourself into Entertainment Tonight or even TMZ overnight. So ABC has, more than either CBS or NBC, firmly placed itself in the chasm between actual news and stories that get people watching, interested and buzzing about. It's kind of subtle because the two types of stories Sawyer covers with more regularity than either Scott Pelley at CBS or Brian Williams at NBC are ones that have timeliness and affect everyone: Weather and consumer issues. On the former all three cover them, especially if they are, literally, big, like the wildfires that consumed the Western U.S. over the summer. But if it's stories like, "Wow, it's hot!" only ABC does it -- and more often than not, that will be the top story on a slow news day.
The latter shows the much starker contrast between ABC and the other two from a content standpoint. Consumer stories should be limited in national newscasts to announcements made that day about things that affect a lot of people and are safety issues, such as a new warning about a pill, or a car recall. But ABC frequently creates stories about minor issues, such as ... well, there was a story a couple months ago about someone making allegations that Walgreen's was gouging its customers. Since I go to Walgreen's to pick up my and Father's medications, this was of some interest to me. But it's worth noting that, as far as I could tell, neither of the other broadcasts even mentioned the Walgreen's suit. Why? Probably because, in the larger scheme of things, this was unimportant.
Another stark difference happened on the September 4 broadcasts. Both CBS and NBC led with the latest on the United States administration's efforts to secure support for a missile strike against Syria, before that country agreed to inspections and surrendered their weapons. But Diane Sawyer decided to lead with the suicide of rapist and torturer Ariel Castro. The Castro suicide is notable, but leading the national news? This decision was made only to pander to the salacious viewer who couldn't get enough of the story about three woman trapped against their will for a decade. Our country dipping its toe into violent action in the Middle East is more important in the larger scheme of things, no offense.
---
I've also noticed that ABC has aggressively changed itself stylistically. It is much flashier than CBS or NBC. Thus it also is much more superficial and more difficult to take seriously.
Graphics are used when a news broadcast wants to show statistics. They are pretty staid on CBS or NBC. But on ABC there is a lot more ... frills. Arrows and bar charts are spiffed up, sometimes with sound effects added. Also, you'll notice that every story has a headline and note bar at the bottom. The top line is essentially the headline or title of the piece; the bottom gives one detail, just enough to hook you into watching the rest of the story. Neither of the other networks do that. Neither of the other networks feel they need to do that. And they're right.
The most egregious dumbing down of national broadcast news is ABC's "Instant Index," their exclusive C-block (essentially the third segment of the show if you break up segments by commercial breaks) of celebrity segments and, in a trend that's growing and thus getting more annoying, YouTube clips, usually of animals. This is done with a lot of graphics, a lot of them rushing towards you or taking you towards it. And don't forget the bed of music that plays throughout the entire thing. It's all flashy and fast -- and there isn't a goddamn bit of news in any of it.
Even the kickers are more saccharine than they traditionally have been. The worst was a mountain made out of a molehill of a study that no one would have heard or cared about if ABC didn't think it was worthy of a story: People carrying luggage get aches and pains because its weight is more than it should be. So what does reporter (and hot babe) Paula Faris do to illustrate the fact that any bag you hold should be only x percent of your total body weight? She drags a scale to Central Park and asks people to weigh their bags on it. It's your man-on-the-street interview with a prop.
At least with conventional last stories of the broadcast it's about someone doing something good for somebody or his or her community. By actively inquiring about how strangers, and thus us, think about how much our bags weigh (and I'm not saying it's stupid, it's just inappropriate for a national news broadcast), they are pandering to us. All of this foofooraw, in fact -- the dialing back of hard news, the heavy reliance on "sort of hard" news like the weather and consumer issues, the bright and loud graphics -- is pandering to an audience that may or may want to be engaged with lighter, less important bullshit stories. And this all started when Charles Gibson decided to retire and ABC's news division handed over editorial control, with the help of other people, to Sawyer. Seriously, whenever I come home and see that my parents have the TV turned on to Channel 5, I get kind of upset.
---
The final straw for me was when I flipped through the channels during each national newscast's A-block (the first segment, the one that runs from the beginning of the show to its first commercial break) and saw that Diane Sawyer decided that one story important enough to begin her broadcast was ... a new study saying that Oreos are as addictive as a drug. Of all the fucking things that are happening in the world, she and ABC News decided that this is good enough for A-block. There wasn't a shooting in some part of the country? No foreign affairs story that's infinitely more important?
Do you know who's doing it right? I like Williams a lot, but Pelley's sobering insistence on covering the news in a professional way for the CBS Evening News is bringing us back within shouting distance of when the national news meant something. Even though Charlie Pierce of Esquire magazine is lambasting CBS News right now (specifically its 60 Minutes for fucking up its Benghazi exclusive), I appreciate Managing Editor Pelley's narrow focus on what people need to know, not just what they would like. Sawyer and ABC News, on the other hand, has turned into junk food news. And as a guy who remembers watching World News Tonight growing up moreso than other of the other two major networks, it saddens me a lot.
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