The Separation between News and Opinion Has Never Been So Fuzzy

[MineralMan]

I'm an old-timer, so I remember the days before there was any television news at all. Then, we got the national and local news in 15-minute broadcasts on the tube. Then, the news programs went to half an hour. What we saw then was brief summaries of what was going on locally, nationally, and around the world.

If you wanted more news, you subscribed to a newspaper. In those, opinions and editorial commentaries were clearly separated and identified. There was an Opinion Page and an Editorial Page. The rest was straight news that described events, typically with a very objective approach.

Today, with 24/7/365 cable news channels, the line has been blurred. For many, those channels have been around for their entire adult life. The cable news started out as mostly news, presented objectively. But, it soon changed so that actual news programs without opinions and pundits were the exception, rather than the rule.

You can still find actual news programs on cable news networks, but even those are punctuated with opinion, with no identification of the difference between news and opinion. Except for those more or less straight news programs, everything else is opinion on all of the cable channels. It can be confusing for many people, really.

Newspapers have shrunk, along with their readership. The good ones still have that separation between news and opinion, but there's less news and more opinion in most newspapers these days. The balance has changed. Broadcast TV networks still offer news programming that is primarily news, with not so much opinion. But, viewership of straight news programming has dropped somewhat.

Then there's the Internet, where the boundary between news and opinion has all but disappeared, particularly on news aggregation sites. It can be difficult for many people to tell the difference, and political bias is everywhere.

It's really up to each of us to correctly distinguish between actual story-telling news and people voicing their opinions on what that news means. We seem to be losing our ability to tell the difference, and are not reading the raw news and coming up with our own opinions.

News, as an objective account of what is happening, is fading away. What is replacing it is not news at all. It is other people's opinion about what the news means. I hope more of us look to actual news reporting more often and to editorial opinion and punditry less often. I'm not optimistic about that happening, though.

[still_one]

1. YES!!! and that is the exact problem why the national news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, etc. gloss over

a lot of important news events that get missed by much of the public

While you suggestion that it is "up to us" to distinguish between opinion from actual news rings true, I suspect the reality from a large portion of the populace will not do that due diligence

[MineralMan]

3. Yes, it is up to us. But you're also right that most will not do so.

The cable news networks learned that and turned to the far less expensive format of putting pundits and opinionators on the air most of the time. It saves money and attracts viewers. Those channels, and I include MSNBC, do not have educating the public with news as their highest priority. Not at all.

The majority of the US population does not want to form its own opinions. Instead, it wants to be spoon-fed opinions that it agrees with. The cable news channels are more than happy to oblige, since it gives them an audience for advertisers to exploit.

Frankly, if news is what you seek, subscribe to a major newspaper of record and read it cover to cover each day. They still identify opinion as opinion. They still report news as news. The major broadcast networks do the same, but in more of a nutshell fashion. If you want news, you'll have to read it. Fortunately, all major newspapers of record are now available online, so you don't have to depend on home delivery and can read them at a convenient time.

I don't watch opinion programs on cable news. I don't need them. I read the news every day and form my own opinions, just as I have always done. But, I'm an old geezer of 72 years, and am no longer relevant, it seems.

[Wellstone ruled]

2. So agree.

[MineralMan]

4. I knew you would! Thanks!

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Some of us Aged Persons

watched this trend since the days of Nixon.. Bill Buckley was the teacher and mentor of many of today's Propagandist.

[newblewtoo]

6. We got our first TV

in 1955. I was six. Mom watched Dave Garroway every day.

Here is a clip of the first broadcast of Today (1952)

News as we were taught should answer the questions: Who, what, when, where, why, and how. Or as Joe Friday might intone, "Just the facts ma'am, just the facts."

[moriah]

7. The problem is "why" leads to both fact and opinion.

There's obvious cause and effect.

Then there's trying to make sense out of things with limited info, or editorial commentary.

It'd be nice if there was more distinction between the two.

[MineralMan]

8. Our first TV entered our home in 1952.

It had a round 10" screen and was an expensive console model. The news was 15 minutes at 5 PM. 15 minutes of local news and 15 minutes of national network news. What a change!