By Вen Li
Many things seemed better when I was a child. Candy tasted good, there were no term papers and the broadcast news industry actually cared about journalism.
I say that not out of a hatred of Wolf Blitzer’s daily War on Iraq (show) on CNN, or the non-stop speculation about the Washington snipers, but because the essence of TV news has undergone a sea of change in the last decade.
Tiananmen Square, 1989.
While watching Saturday morning cartoons on CBS, I remember being rudely interrupted by a “Special Report,” complete with ominous attention-grabbing sound effects and graphics. I did not fully grasp the importance of the situation until my parents joined me, watching in silence as Dan Rather or some other suit described the scene in Beijing. We all sat in silence, including the TV anchor, simply watching the events unfold, live and unadulterated by uninformed commentary or speculation. Eventually, we tried other channels, but on every station journalists sat in awestruck silence, or admitted that they didn’t know.
Later that year, the Berlin Wall fell, and again TV channels were interrupted by “Special Reports.” I had only loosely formed the connection between “Special Reports” and “important stuff happening” when the CTV and CBC aired “Special Reports” about Meech Lake Accord failure in Newfoundland and Manitoba in June 1990. The “Special Report” about Bernie Shaw being scared shitless during the first Desert Shield/Desert Storm police actions in Iraq in 1990/1991 only reinforced that only rare and important events interrupt regular programming.
What didn’t strike me then but is plainly obvious now is that in all those cases, the reporting went away when there was no more story to report. There were no attempts to make, influence, or become a part of the story.
This point has been lost in recent months as anticipatory and predictive reporting exercises were passed off as news. In the United States, the failure to locate new anthrax victims; the sniper police not having a news conference; and the Pentagon not declaring extended police action against Iraq suddenly became “Breaking News” segments complete with on-call pundits, analysts and even commercials for anthrax-free burgers and gas-sucking off-roading vehicles. Canada on the other hand only chooses to lampoon Kyoto, Paul Martin or any other leader du jour until the issues become irritably boring (usually within two days).
CNN and others should be commended for the good things that came out of extended O.J. and Monica Lewinsky coverage, such as an expansion of legal awareness in the general population. However, prolonged discussion of the 2000 presidential election’s chads and Lou Dobbs’ tally board of corporate financial badness since Enron are less than productive. Giving expert speculation too much credence in a time when reliable information is scare only creates more news than is reported.
Media outlets can offer 24 hour coverage of anything they choose but they must remember that for many people, mass media is the only source of current information. Reporting speculation as news, or arousing anything more than attention should be left in the domain of propaganda artists, not the fourth estate’s boardrooms.