According to this story, John King will take over the CNN time slot left by Lou Dobbs' resignation. All fine and good, but it does raise the question whether so much "straight news" can succeed against two networks -- Fox and MSNBC -- that play mostly kooks on the left and kooks on the right at the same time (Most of CNN's kooks, now that Dobbs is gone, can be found on Headline News). I'm thinking not. If this attempt at a broader penny press approach works, then people get a more, ahem, fair and balanced approach to news. But all the market trends indicate that's not what the shrinking cable cult news addicts really want. And when the ideologues completely control the evening cable news, political learning suffers.
Showing posts with label lou dobbs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lou dobbs. Show all posts
Thursday, November 12, 2009
King Replaces Dobbs
Can Straight News Win?
According to this story, John King will take over the CNN time slot left by Lou Dobbs' resignation. All fine and good, but it does raise the question whether so much "straight news" can succeed against two networks -- Fox and MSNBC -- that play mostly kooks on the left and kooks on the right at the same time (Most of CNN's kooks, now that Dobbs is gone, can be found on Headline News). I'm thinking not. If this attempt at a broader penny press approach works, then people get a more, ahem, fair and balanced approach to news. But all the market trends indicate that's not what the shrinking cable cult news addicts really want. And when the ideologues completely control the evening cable news, political learning suffers.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
In Praise of ... Glenn Beck?
I come to praise Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, and all the other talkmeiseters out there in TV and radio land.
As much as it pains me to say, mainstream journalists need to pay closer attention to these guys.
Yeah, they're a bit nutty, a bit fruity, and if I could come up with some other food-based description I'd use it too. We all know that. But they, and the minor league talkers, have come up with what eventually came to be major stories.
As much as it pains me to say, mainstream journalists need to pay closer attention to these guys.
Yeah, they're a bit nutty, a bit fruity, and if I could come up with some other food-based description I'd use it too. We all know that. But they, and the minor league talkers, have come up with what eventually came to be major stories.
- Van Jones, the environmental adviser, resigned. Journalists acted a bit surprised by this, but if they'd been listening to talk radio they would have seen this coming a long time ago and would have covered the story sooner.
- ACORN, that wacky group of whatever the hell they are, got caught doing and saying stupid things. Hannity in particular has been all over these guys. There's embarrassing video out there and the feds have responded by slowly but clearly cutting ties to the group (Census Bureau, the latest I suppose).
- Czars. Can we ever have enough czars? Apparently not the president, and the talkers have been pissing and moaning about this for a while now. And guess what? CNN this morning, a story about how many czars there are in the Administration and congressional concerns about who they answer to, how they are vetted. Listen to the crazy talk people, CNN, and you would have had this story sooner.
Friday, May 22, 2009
The Need to Know, and the Need to Feel
There's been a shift in the news media audience in the past 10 years or so. Yes, it's fragmented. Yes, it's shrunk. But interesting to me is how people seem to be shifting from a need to know to a need to feel.
News media serve a surveillance function for many people. Journalists feed the need to know, the need to keep up with what's happening, a sense of connectedness and knowledge that many people find vital, if not absolutely necessary, to get through their day either because of jobs or because they're news junkies.
But of late, with the growth of TV and radio talk shows but most especially thanks to cable TV news, there has been a replacing of the need to know with the need to feel.
Talkmeisters of all partisan stripes, from Lou Dobbs to Sean Hannity sell one thing today and it's not knowledge. It's anger and frustration and righteous indignation. Sure, they pepper their gabbing with bits of information, but even a fan has to acknowledge the info is skewed, that straw men are set up and knocked down. Hannity and Bill O'Reilly can't do a show without name calling, for example, and they often falsely or incompletely portray the other side. No wonder they hate the idea of a fairness doctrine (btw, so do I).
They want people to feel more than they want people to know.
If they wanted people to know they'd offer fairer portrayals of the other side. If they wanted people to know they'd cover topics other than those laced with partisan and ideological intrigue -- some of it nonexistent except in their own minds (saving Christmas? Jeez, ever walk into a real store?). If they wanted people to know they wouldn't openly mislead, which happens all the time on these programs (don't even get me started on how they screw up science to fit their partisan beliefs).
But people don't want to know so much as they want to know what to feel.
All news, especially cable TV news, continues to edge this way. The news audience as a whole has shrunk and as a result has become more partisan and ideological. The battle is on for this smaller yet passionate group and the results ain't pretty. CNN dodges left and right trying to find an audience. Fox News has been doing this bit for years, spending more time talking about the news than actually covering it. MSNBC is doing well with a small, loyal liberal audience. Foundering newspapers may be next to get on the bandwagon, but I don't know if it'll save 'em.
In some ways this is not so bad. I think we'll see the growth of advocacy journalism not unlike, in superficial ways at least, the old partisan press prior to the 1830s. This will free journalists and cause innumerable problems as well, but that's for another post. Indeed I've proposed an undergraduate class in advocacy journalism to explore what I think our new journalism will look like -- even offered to swap out a graduate class to teach it -- but I've heard nada from my boss. Ah well.
News media serve a surveillance function for many people. Journalists feed the need to know, the need to keep up with what's happening, a sense of connectedness and knowledge that many people find vital, if not absolutely necessary, to get through their day either because of jobs or because they're news junkies.
But of late, with the growth of TV and radio talk shows but most especially thanks to cable TV news, there has been a replacing of the need to know with the need to feel.
Talkmeisters of all partisan stripes, from Lou Dobbs to Sean Hannity sell one thing today and it's not knowledge. It's anger and frustration and righteous indignation. Sure, they pepper their gabbing with bits of information, but even a fan has to acknowledge the info is skewed, that straw men are set up and knocked down. Hannity and Bill O'Reilly can't do a show without name calling, for example, and they often falsely or incompletely portray the other side. No wonder they hate the idea of a fairness doctrine (btw, so do I).
They want people to feel more than they want people to know.
If they wanted people to know they'd offer fairer portrayals of the other side. If they wanted people to know they'd cover topics other than those laced with partisan and ideological intrigue -- some of it nonexistent except in their own minds (saving Christmas? Jeez, ever walk into a real store?). If they wanted people to know they wouldn't openly mislead, which happens all the time on these programs (don't even get me started on how they screw up science to fit their partisan beliefs).
But people don't want to know so much as they want to know what to feel.
All news, especially cable TV news, continues to edge this way. The news audience as a whole has shrunk and as a result has become more partisan and ideological. The battle is on for this smaller yet passionate group and the results ain't pretty. CNN dodges left and right trying to find an audience. Fox News has been doing this bit for years, spending more time talking about the news than actually covering it. MSNBC is doing well with a small, loyal liberal audience. Foundering newspapers may be next to get on the bandwagon, but I don't know if it'll save 'em.
In some ways this is not so bad. I think we'll see the growth of advocacy journalism not unlike, in superficial ways at least, the old partisan press prior to the 1830s. This will free journalists and cause innumerable problems as well, but that's for another post. Indeed I've proposed an undergraduate class in advocacy journalism to explore what I think our new journalism will look like -- even offered to swap out a graduate class to teach it -- but I've heard nada from my boss. Ah well.
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