Media Curmudgeon

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August 30, 2007

More on Editorializing and Opinion in the News

Neil Derrough’s thoughtful response to my post on editorials and commentaries made some excellent points that impel me to expand and continue the discussion—and to continue it in a less judgmental tone.

Neil did ring a bell when he wrote, “It’s hard to interpret words like simplistic, doctrinaire, rigid, uncomplicated and less educated as an inducement to have a reasoned discussion. Trying to discredit the opposing viewpoint in this manner does not work today. Does the term elitist ring a bell?” He goes on to claim, “There are a lot of reasons that so many liberal broadcast efforts have failed. This attitude is a major contributing factor. To hope for any good to come from these heated discussions you refer to, there should at least be respect for allowing differing points of view and for those expressing it.”

I plead guilty to being somewhat of an elitist (Definition: “One who despises people or things regarded as inferior, especially because of social or intellectual pretension: snob.”) Or at least writing like one. I probably fit a standard conservative stereotype of an Eastern establishment, bleeding heart liberal, even a limousine liberal. Nevertheless, I do respect Neil and other conservatives’ points of view, even though I have a bad habit of taunting them.

Neil made the point that when he was general manager of CBS radio and television stations in the late 1960s and 70s, he editorialized and endorsed candidates. That was a golden age of broadcasting, when CBS had a conscience (ABC and NBC, too) and viewed broadcasting as first a public trust and second as a money tree. The first responsibility of a station general manager was to keep the valuable FCC license, and the way you did that was by serving the public good, convenience, and necessity and by formally ascertaining what issues local citizens, government officials, and community leaders felt were most important. General managers were not only required to editorialize, they were given the resources to do so. CBS stations were required to have both an editorial director who researched and wrote editorials and a community affairs director who assessed the needs of the community and was in charge of the license renewal process. CBS allowed general managers to endorse political candidates, a very gutsy decision, whereas NBC, being more timid, did not allow it—at least in the mid-1970s.

Imagine, television and radio stations (terrestrial radio had much more impact then than now) that were licensed by the government—a politically appointed FCC—endorsing political candidates. The policy then was to endorse local and state candidates, not presidential candidates, which I think was the correct way to do it.

Neil also pointed out that it was not the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, but that “expense considerations” were are the heart of most decisions by radio and television station group owners to stop editorializing. I agree with that point, but I also think that many group owners were influenced by programmers who didn’t want any boring interruptions, by lawyers who didn’t want to piss off any politicians, and by salespeople who didn’t want to offend any advertisers. Therefore, well-researched, thoughtful editorial opinion was dumped and replaced by unlabeled opinion that was not well researched and meant to incite controversy (“let’s you and him fight”) rather than elicit discussion. Controversial talk programming with a single bloviator (conservative or liberal) is a lot less expensive than investigative journalism that requires digging and fact-checking.

Neil also correctly pointed out that commentary creeping into news content is not new, that Walter Cronkite did it in the 1970s when he made it clear he opposed the war in Vietnam. I think that was the “green light for media organizations to let opinion slip in to their news coverage,” as Neil points out. Of course, I don’t agree with him that “The New York Times is one of the worst offenders,” but that is another discussion and another blog. The larger question, is, I think, has commentary creep been embraced by the American news-and-information-consuming public? And if so, has the definition of news and, thus, journalism been altered?

I believe the answer is “yes.” I don’t think it matters much when or how the definition changed (although it is interesting, at least to me), but what is important is to recognize that news and journalism has changed permanently and how we, as consumers of information, can adjust and adapt our consumption tastes and habits.

Opinion, bias, and subjectivity are now embedded in most of our sources of information. I think all of us will continue to do what humans have always done and select those sources of information, gossip, or rumors that reinforce and are consistent with our own opinions, biases, and subjective, often narrow, views. But I hope that most news consumers will do what Neil Derrough does and expose themselves to opposing views and express their disagreement so that subjectivity and bias don’t get too far out of hand—become their own watchdogs, in a sense.

One organization that performs the media watchdog function well—both for conservatives and liberals—is Media Matters for America, although conservatives think it tilts left. I urge you to subscribe to its RSS feeds or regularly go to its website.

Posted by Charles Warner at August 30, 2007 12:34 PM

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