Mr. Newsblues rips TV news
Cory Bergman December 5th, 2007
It’s easy to say that Newsblues.com founder Mike James is jaded. After all, that’s why he quit the business to start a controversial industry site. But it’s hard to argue with his assessment of TV news these days:
TV news, and those who draw paychecks from it, have become lazy, sloppy, and too willing to trust consultants rather than their own instincts. The industry no longer delivers news. It falls back on formulas. Content has become predictable. It takes the easy way out. It tries to fill an ever-increasing news hole with artificial preservatives.
Absolutely right, although there are some exceptions out there. As I’ve written many times before, my hope is the internet will help bring quality, relevancy and innovation back to TV newsrooms (which will soon become multiplatform newsrooms). But it takes newsroom leadership brave enough to embrace it, and so far, success stories are too few and far between.
34 Comments Add your own
1. Don Moore | December 5th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
It takes more than the newsroom leadership; I’m afraid, it’s going to require the return of Public Service commitment by broadcasters. Once news became a profit center instead of a public service, it went south.
2. Dave | December 5th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
I agree with Don…
Take back your community and city, and you’ll take back the money.
3. Brink | December 5th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
Whoa, a tough commentary there, and just 15 years late! Keep going, Mike–maybe you’ll become relevant.
4. thom | December 5th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Mike is completely right. I also agree with Corey that the Internet could bring back quality. But we see so many examples of the Internet folks losing the fight with the TV folks, it is difficult to see the leadership happening.
The TV side still makes the most money. Internet has always been seen a place to inexpensively re-purpose existing content. (And I know there aren’t really sides, but until companies stop reporting revenue separately and doing budgets separately there will still be sides).
Money — in substantial amounts — needs to be on the Internet side before it can lead anything. I know Web revenue is improving. But I don’t expect to see a big change fast.
I think newspaper sites stand a better chance of competing on the video side online, than TV news sites do of competing with newspapers for quality reporting.
5. Z | December 5th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
Can you really go back? I mean, until quality sells over flash, it becomes impossible for a station to turn its back on what people seem to demand with their remotes.
TV news has become lazy because the viewers aren’t demanding more. Change has to come from both sides, not just the broadcasters. No one’s going to change what they broadcast if the viewers don’t respond to it.
Plus, the stations most likely to change are the ones that are in third or fourth place in the market — if those ratings don’t spike quickly, how many NDs and GMs will keep their jobs?
When people complain about TV news, I tell them this: Find a station you like, watch it, and TELL THEM WHEN THEY DO THINGS YOU LIKE. Don’t bother complaining about things you don’t like–they get plenty of those people. But if a half-dozen people called to compliment the coverage when a good political story led the newscast instead of a drug-deal-gone-bad homicide, news people would notice. And odds are good, slowly, you’ll find them doing more of those stories.
6. He may know who this is | December 5th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
MJ has a keen, but acerbic view to the current broadcast news biz.
People are lazy. Many of them. There are also are a great number of people in power that are not only lazy, but they abuse their power.
MJ has apparently been able to cull the search portals of items which hardly relate to the actual news product, however, they include bits and pieces of people’s lives outside of what is on the tube.
I saw a story the other day that was terrific. A reporter had staked out a Salvation Army drop off location. Many people drove to this location and stole items others had left for the benefit of the less fortunate. DId the reporter make himself the story? No, he approached the people and either asked them why they were stealing or how they should put the items back. Was there empty chit-chat between or amongst anchors? I guess not.
One of the chief problems with broadcast news today is paying a marginal talent who merely reads news an excessive salary. Putting several reporters out on the streets is the key to winning over viewers.
7. John | December 6th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Broadcasters are viewers themselves, so if we agree that viewers are lazy, so, then, too are broadcasters. Basically, wherever you are on the food chain, all humans want the easiest way to do things.
Which in part explains in recent years the growing interest in, er, addiction to content that is not even close to news — Paris, Britney, Lindsay, etc. Don’t blame this all on the advent of high-speed access to these pictures and non-stories.
So we return to the question of which came first? Did the public demand celebrity BS, and the broadcasters just met the need? Or did broadcasters dictate the agenda, and we as consumers unwittingly fell for it?
Either way, we’re still lazy, and Z is right when he says “Viewers aren’t demanding more.” We’re actually not demanding smart, important content, stories that truly do affect us and our small world.
Broadcasters will only change what they deliver when it increases the bottom line. We’re too entrenched at this point for a network — heck, even a local station manager — to actually have enough of a conscience to make a drastic shift in what is being covered.
Thom says newspaper sites stand a better chance than TV sites of competing on the video side online. That’s because newspaper people get the purpose of journalism and — don’t laugh at this one — value things like language and style far better than TV people ever will.
Finally, commenter No. 6 mentions excessive salaries for our newsreaders. That one has always thrown me for a loop. Where is the meritocracy? In this business, the less you work, the more you get paid? A newsroom is a perfect microcosm for our material culture in that the pretty people get to live the better lives. I mean, shouldn’t everyone’s au pair have a nanny?
8. tvrobert | December 6th, 2007 at 7:22 am
I’m fortunate enough to live where most local TV news isn’t crap yet (in the shadow of the Twin Cities). But a few stations in the market (FOX, ABC5, and to a lesser extent WCCO) seem stricken with exactly what the “Surly Editor” is whining about. KARE11 does the best work. Their sweeps series on the pitfalls of Ethanol were spot-on in a state where the full-blown politicization of how corn-based Ethanol will save the planet plays like a broken record from the Governor on down.
I left local TV news in 2001. I can still barely stand to watch it. But KARE 11 is at least usually tolerable.
9. Tonto Weinstein | December 6th, 2007 at 2:56 pm
“The content is fetid and foul, shallow and pointless.”
That pretty much sums it up. I don’t know how many stories need to be covered about Black Friday mall crowds, but devoting 2/3rds of your newscast to what everyone living already knows is simply shallow and pointless. Then to follow up the live shots from the mall with a consumer reporter extolling “great deals” at Neiman Marcus with so much of the viewing public trying to make their house note is just ridiculous. And out of touch.
Attention news managers: For years you’ve dumbed down and approached the product as something to be digested by the lowest common denominator. Congratulations! That’s all that you have left viewing your news. Anyone with half a brain sees the one compelling element of your teasers for the ‘11, cracks open the laptop and heads right for news.google.com. Yes Mr, Miss and Mrs. Newsperson, the public knows about news.google.com so quit getting your stories from there.
As others have said, it’s time to get back to work and own local news. Get out there.
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