The State of TV News
I
started this blog over a year ago to have a place where I write down my
thoughts on different aspects of the entertainment industry. I figured that
since I enjoy a lot of the content that the industry has to offer that it would
be nice to share my opinions of these things with others. One aspect I have to
write about but which I am very passionate of is all the way news can be found
on television. I am a person who loves to devour all forms of news; I read
countless websites, blogs, and watch as many of the news channels as
possible. As much is the case with
anymore, my appetite for news has only grown as I have gotten older. As one
tends to age, one tends to care more about what is actually going on around the
world. As each year passes however I
have found that the majority of what is labeled as “news” is anything but. This is not a new thought I have come to but
one that I have had for a while. The spark that finally got me to sit down and
write about this topic began in the least likely of places, a conversation I
had with my dad on Facebook.
Trough
Facebook I learned that my father and also my mom were angry with NBC that
Brian Williams had been suspended and most likely fired for his exaggerated
claims of riding in a helicopter that he had claimed was fired upon. My parents
were disgusted not with what Brian Williams had stated but by the network for
suspending him and no longer allow him to read the news every night at
6:30pm. I believe that the feelings they
have resonate a lot with the older generation while mostly younger folks do not
care. To people of a certain era, the job that Brian Williams had was something
to be proud of, something for journalists to esteem to be. Brian Williams was
the face of news that once housed such greats as Edward R. Murrow and Tom
Brokaw. Tom Brokaw and Edward R. Murrow are considered great men because they
anchored these types of shows back when they were needed. Prior to the internet
and cable, truly the only way one heard about anything outside of the Newspaper
where shows such as these. These shows were important and critical. So to the
older generation, this job still holds a high place with them. Who cares if
Brian Williams exaggerated a little, he was still dam good at his job at
delivering the news. I think that is were the split in my opinion comes with my
parents. They look at a man and saw someone they could trust to deliver the
news. When I look at Brian Williams I just see a liar who was good at reading
the “news”. I never thought the type of news he reported was that critical and
I didn't even think his job was that difficult. To be honest, I barely have
ever watched a single second of “The Nightly News With Brian Williams”. The split in thought is not shocking when you
consider what I grew up with vs. my parents. My parents grew up with Nightly
News being important where as I grew up with the 24 hours news networks. The
amusing thing though, is that while the invention of the non-stop news channels
regulated these Network Nightly Telecasts to become relics they were also what
I feel drove the end of news as we know it.
The
idea 24 hours a day in a perfect word is one out-standing idea; there is so
much important things going on that it would be nice to know about them all.
The issue becomes that in a world where money is king above all us, there was
never a chance that these types of channels would live up to high ideals. I
know that the previous statement sounds like it comes from the mind of a cynic
but all one has to do is turn on any of these networks to see the issue. I do
not pretend to know the original intent or the mission statements of channels
such as CNN, MSNBC, of FOX; all I know is what I have seen since I began to
consume such content. As the world has
become more global and inter-connected the amount of stories that are important
to Americans have also grown. What happens in India these days now has an
impact on the United States. With the whole world as its oyster these types of
channels should be over-loaded with around the clock news of every kind. In
reality, these channels have delivered anything but. On a regular basis these
channels are filled with either political issues, political candidates,
political maneuvers, or the recent “story of the moment” i.e. riots, planes
disappearing, train crashes, etc. I do
not want to belittle any of these aforementioned topics; what goes on in
Washington D.C. and travesties are news and need to be known, but there is so
much more to life then these things. A few hours at most a day could cover all
these topics; instead we get the same conversation for weeks on end. Every
topic is discussed non-stop with panels and talking heads until they all
become redundant.
The
question one must wonder is why do all the stations essentially build around
the same content. The answer is quite
obvious and goes back to what I previously stated; it all comes down to money.
More specifically, it all comes down to the ratings which drives the money.
That issue was always going to be a barrier to why these networks do not always
strive to be the best. These channels deliver what people know and not what
they need to know. These channels all do the same thing but with different
political spins. I am not against a
company trying to turn a profit I just feel that a certain moral compass should
also be part of a new network. Now of course, not everything and everyone on
these networks try and pander to the lowest common denominator. Some of these
anchors make valid points about the news of the day and I in fact do learn
something. Yet, for as good as some of these anchors can be, they are still
tied to the same issue of limited scope. These channels should talk more about
whats going on in the world, or they should have become what newspapers used to
be. These channels have so much money at their disposal it would be nice to see
some hard hitting investigative reports that go beyond the scope.
When
networks such as these do go outside these lines, such as CNN doing world news
at 12am at night they end up lost in the shuffle. These networks need to fill so many hours on
so little time there were almost always destined to just become opinion
networks for consumers with similar agendas. At the end of the day, some of
these networks have just become the mouth pieces for political parties. If you
want to deny global warming just watch Fox News. If you want to believe all Republicans are
evil and Democrats are awesome watch MSNBC.
If you have no political agenda and want to just know what the latest
human interest story and see it played to death go to CNN. Thank god for CNN or
I would still think a Worm Hole is what caused the Malaysian Airplane to
vanish. The fact I can write that sentence shows the sadness of CNN; the
station that started the 24 hour craze.
With
the lightness that has become these channels the question becomes is there a
real place to find substantive news on television. The answer to that question
is yes. When it comes to hard-hitting news, the places I found it these last few
years are at Comedy Central and HBO.
Other anchors and networks still mock and like to pretend that what goes
on at Comedy Central is still “fake” news but for the educated people, we know
otherwise. What John Stewart was able to do at Comedy Central was nothing if
not amazing. John Stewart looked at these 24-hours networks and saw the same
redundancy I just discussed, and then, he called them on it. John Stewart
looked at what Politicians would say, and then attacked them for
hypocrisy. John Stewart shined a light
on our fundamentally flawed system, and did it all under the guise of humor.
Thanks to Mr. Stewart we later got Stephen Colbert and finally Larry Wilmore.
They all do/did basically the same thing but with their own respective styles.
Some of my favorite moments among all 3 shows was Stephen Colbert’s “Get To
Know Your Congressman”. The segment was simply Stephen interviewing a random
congressman from one of our 50 states. What was eye-opening about the whole
process was that as Stephen interviews them you realize these elected officials
may not have a lot going on upstairs. Those are some of the scary yet funny
truths you learned through these types of shows on Comedy Central. m.
Those
programs on Comedy Central got the ball rolling in terms of delivering
substantive news, and then HBO took it one step further. With the burden of
being a daily program on Comedy Central, these shows mostly dealt with the
hypocrisy that existed within the United States. These shows were once a day
and with a specific time restraint and therefore there was not enough lead time
to investigate even more full-fledged stories. That is why today, for my money
the best news on these days are “John Oliver” and “Vice” on HBO. “John Oliver” is
a comedy show with a tone like “The Daily Show” but being only once a week it
can deliver stories of which I have never seen. John Oliver goes beyond just
the United States and takes you around the world and truly shows you crazy/scary
the rest of the world can be. Is the show funny, yes, but is it also
informative, yes. In addition to giving a recap of the week, John Oliver will
spend countless minutes each week on a single topic. Each week he delivers an insane piece on any
topic that meets his fancy and dive on in.
For a great example of this, look no further then when he did a 20
minute peace on the state of America’s bridges. He went into great detail about
how America barely has anyone in place to make sure all our bridges are in good
working order, consider that the majority of these are decades/centuries old.
He goes on to show that the reason that sustaining America’s foundation has
become a little discussed topic in Washington is not due to the lack of danger,
but the lack of election appeal that this sort of issue has with America and therefore
politicians. Think about how we only here about the poor foundation of bridges
when a bridge collapses and kills an innocent person. When this happens, the 24
hours news channels will report on this, people will be angry by this, and then
in a day we all forget and nothing changes.
I have to say, before I watched John Oliver discuss this topic in detail
I never cared about it either, but now I do. This is an important issue and the
only place I could ever have heard about it came from a self-proclaimed satire
show.
“John
Oliver” is not the only show on HBO that is making waves as the new face of
news, the other would be “Vice”. “Vice” is not a funny show (although it can
be) but it shines a light on some of the most important news of our generation.
In the last 2 months I have discovered this program I learned so much: Iran is
the world leader in transgender operations, deporting illegal immigrants out of
cities are destroying farms and communities, our blood cells have become more
resistant to antibiotic drugs and yet we are evaporating the forests where we
could discover something better, poor women in India are being using as
surrogates for Westerners, , to funny little side stories like how in China
white people are seen as the sexy source of advertising. These stories are hard hitting and with no
political agenda. I have watched these fearless reporters embed themselves with
drug lords and ride dangerously on top of trains with immigrants to get their
story and bring it to people’s attention. This is not fun news, but it is real
news. For instance, without this show I would have no idea what Palm Oil is.
You may ask yourself, what is Palm Oil and why should I care. The answer is
Palm Oil is in almost all the products we buy at grocery stores, Palm Oil comes
from the forests we are destroying in Indonesia which has displaced multiple
communities. Those forests in Indonesia we destroy for Palm Oil also contained the
plants we need for future medicine if we wish to survive as a people.
Everything is all connected. Yet, without “Vice” I would have no clue about any
of this. Hearing about dying communities
and forests is not sexy but it is something we need to know.
There
is no easy answer to how to fix news back here in the states. I do not know how
it started but today news is mostly a game, politics has become a game, and each
player uses the other to better themselves. To circle back to the original
thought that got me started on this topic in the first place, I do not care
about Brian Williams being fired. He is part of a system that is long past its
end-date. For me there are other sources of news that I find to be more
important. One hopes that as those shows grow in popularity, other people take
notice and real change happens. Wouldn't
it be great if people actually did
care about bridge maintenance and therefore politicians had to care?
