Broken News

Breaking news
Originally uploaded by dooce

"Film at 11:00" is the way they used to say it. That was the teaser used by television stations to alert viewers that there would be some visual to add interest to the talking heads reporting the evening news. That's when news was a serious matter, perhaps so much so as to be a bit dull.

All that has changed. It now appears that events become worthy of mention as news not because of their significance but because there is video. Local television stations report car chases from the other side of the country just because they have film taken from the traffic chopper. It drives me nuts.

I have a high regard for the contribution journalism makes to society. My oldest son is a professional journalist, a career path I once imagined for myself before I got diverted, whether for good or ill. I'm proud of my son's career and he and I have had many conversations about journalistic ethics. I've learned a lot from his experiences. I am not a persistent critic of print or electronic journalism. I'm something of a media junkie myself and probably spend way too much time with newspapers and news channels.

However, this "Breaking News" thing is just too much. It apparently is calculated to lend a sense of immediacy and urgency to a story. But what results is that the lead story becomes whatever is the most immediate traffic accident, hold-up at the 7-Eleven, or Brittany Spears DUI. It all depends, of course, on whether there is video.

It's becoming a joke, but in my opinion it isn't funny. The trivialization of local news, which seems to be happening around the country, is having a debilitating affect on the sharing of information necessary to the building of community.

Breaking news
Originally uploaded by
Naeem Rashid

We live in a very complex world in which information is the most important commodity. I find it disturbing to see a program like Larry King Live, a nightly hour-long interview show, devote night after night to high profile crimes, usually those involving beautiful white women. Apart from the hypocrisy of treating crime as entertainment, and criminals as stars, this unfortunate practice misses the opportunity to provide dialogue on the important issues of our time.

The 24 hour news channels are now going the "Breaking News" route. MSNBC, Fox, and CNN are all scrolling the hot news stories across the bottom of the screen. My 20 inch television, an object of scorn from my kids, displays the various layers of scrolling news banners at a point just below the nose of the talking heads. The announcement of Britanny Spears most recent divorce filing was presented as a "Breaking News" banner scrolling across the forehead of Wolf Blitzer.

All is not lost, of course. There are important and dependable outlets for serious news. I rarely miss Meet the Press, a hard-hitting interview show every Sunday, or This Week with George Stephanopoulos, a personal favorite. For those of us into hardcore news we can search out Chris Matthews, Bill Moyers, or the columnists of major newspapers.

But even as I write this piece the local news station is spending about ten minutes of air time reporting on tonight's American Idol highlights, and covering a contestant who lives in Joplin. I've got nothing against American Idol. I watch it myself. But it is NOT news. It is a news station using its outlet to promote an entertainment program with big ratings.

The issues in our society are way too important to be subsumed by the culture of celebrity and the pursuit of ratings and profits. The breaking news fixation is urgently in need of repair.

Be sure to shoot plenty of video.

Coronation Postponed

2007.09_obama_clinton_window
Originally uploaded by cizauskas

A few days ago I posted my concerns about Iowa and New Hampshire having such an undue influence on the selection of the presidential candidates. I still believe what I wrote, but it must be said that these few days have delivered some unexpected lessons, and important ones at that.

I haven't decided who I will vote for in this election and I see no sign that the various candidates are restlessly awaiting my endorsement. It is an interesting race, however, especially because it is the first time in decades that there is no incumbent president or vice-president on the ballot. So it's fun for us political junkies to play with possibilities.

However, as events unfolded over these few days the media coverage of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary took things to a whole new level. The online and television talking heads starting running out of hyperboles for Barack Obama and soon had him sweeping the country leading a massive transformation of American society, with the entire world soon to follow.

I like Obama very much. He is a tremendous orator and I believe he has the potential to be a change agent of the first order. For a while there I found myself readily embracing what was happening. But somehow it seemed a bit premature to let one night of caucuses in Iowa anoint a global leader of social change. And sure enough, New Hampshire voters trumped Iowa and postponed the coronation.

All of this is caused primarily by a yearning for fundamental change. The incumbent president has led the country into a tragic and unnecessary war that will have spiritual and economic consequences for many years to come. Debate over immigration policy is beginning to expose our underbelly of institutional racism, not unlike our government's response to Katrina. Health care is fast becoming a crisis that could bump the nation into class warfare.

The country needs a leader who can embody hope, articulate a vision, and bring about tangible results. We all have those yearnings and perhaps that makes us a bit too vulnerable. But we must be careful not to allow the media to prepackage the change process through polls and punditry.

There is a lot of wisdom in the common, everyday people of this nation and the world. We will let the media know when the time for transformation has come.