"One might have thought that the television industry, with its history of rapid adaptation to technological change, would have become a center of innovation for the next radical transformation in communication. It did not. Instead, the United States is arguably more isolated and less educated about the world than it was a half-century ago. Full Story »
Posted by Russ Wellen
If you want to know how TV news lost its way, read John Hockenberry's piece. It features complete context, relevant personal anecdotes, an experienced voice, and a thorough look at technology's role (or lack of it, or resistance to it) in TV journalism trends. Extremely insightful and forward looking.
This was one in a series of lessons I learned about how television news had lost its most basic journalistic instincts in its search for the audience-driven sweet spot, the “emotional center” of the American people.
I knew it was pretty much over for television news when I discovered in 2003 that the heads of NBC’s news division and entertainment division, the president of the network, and the chairman all owned TiVos, which enabled them to zap past the commercials that paid their salaries. “It’s such a great gadget. It changed my life,” one of them said at a corporate affair in the Saturday Night Live studio. It was neither the first nor the last time that a television executive mistook a fundamental technological change for a new gadget.
“fundamental technological change” vs. “a new gadget” — This significant distinction must be understood if those in media are to help news evolve into something useful, educational and relevant.
I did, however, point out to the corporate-integrity people unhelpful details about how NBC News was covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that our GE parent company stood to benefit from as a major defense contractor. I wondered aloud, in the presence of an integrity “team leader,” how we were to reconcile this larger-scale conflict with the admonitions about free dinners. “You make an interesting point I had not thought of before,” he told me. “But I don’t know how GE being a defense contractor is really relevant to the way we do our jobs here at NBC news.” Integrity, I guess, doesn’t scale.
This quotation says it all; I have nothing to add.
Technology, as it has done through the ages, is freeing communication, and this is good news for the news. A little empathy couldn’t hurt.
Yes! Technology needs empathy — and a deep connection to real human needs and concerns — in order to reach its maximum potential.
Do the American people really have only one “emotional center”? We are such a complex country, and it is out-of-touch and condescending of these TV executives who simplify and dumb-down those experiences we need to understand in order to live our lives better.