Why Journalists Can't Be Like Murrow Anymore

[babylonsister]

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/#58325

Why Journalists Can't Be Like Murrow Anymore
Posted by Guest Blogger on July 30, 2007 at 2:00 PM.

This post, written by Michael Winship, originally appeared on MyDD

It's a fact: Media conglomerates' labor practices are harming the quality of TV and radio news.

A CBS television newswriter says: "We take a lot of stuff from 'Entertainment Tonight.' We watch it at 6:30 and decide what to use."

Most Americans still get their news from "old media" like newspapers, TV and radio. There's concern about how Rupert Murdoch will gut the Wall St. Journal when he gets his hands on it. MSNBC Anchor Mika Brzezinski recently tried to burn a script on air in frustration over being asked to lead the day's news with a story about Paris Hilton rather than Richard Lugar's declaration that Bush's Iraq strategy is failing. Who can we trust to tell us what's really going on? Now, a new study of broadcast journalists from the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) gives an inside look at how the media conglomerates are destroying broadcast news quality with the same tactics other big companies are using against their workers. Replacing full-time newswriters with part-timers and temps, cutting staff and resources, and requiring more and more "multi-tasking" in the newsroom, equals bad news for the public. Literally.

The question to ask is "Can you believe what you see on CBS?" A recent article in New York Magazine about Katie Couric noted that CBS' Evening News budget was cut almost in half from 1991 to 2000 ($65 million to $35 million). CBS has cut the number of full-time news staff by about 60% since 1980, replacing many of them with temps and part-timers. In 1989, CBS network television news employed 28 researchers; by 1999, those positions were all gone. But what do these staff cuts mean to the public? Half the WGA members reported that at least several times a week, they use no more than a single website to check the accuracy of stories. I wonder how often that single website is Wikipedia. Some WGA members work "off the clock" to ensure that they are up-to-date on news developments and that facts are properly checked. Members tell lots of stories about how management pressures them for more fluff, more often. In fact 49% of all WGA members responding to the survey said that hard news stories were bumped for fluff or puff at least once a day. For local news outlets, that number went up to 57%.

It is clear that the TV and radio news stations, "in an attempt to save money," are undermining their own ability to report on issues that matter to the public. Broadcast stations are failing to live up to the responsibility that they were charged with by the Telecommunications Act of 1935, which required broadcasters using the public airwaves to "serve the public interest." Our study asked WGA members "Do you think your news outlet spends enough time and energy making sure that your audience has enough information to make sound judgments on issues relevant to public life?" 72% of members responded "Not enough" or "Not nearly enough."

You've probably heard of Video News Releases (VNRs) - video press releases from corporations, government or NGOs that TV stations often present as "news" without disclosing their sources. As one member explained, " are used to fill the time because we are short-staffed." Some members cited "daily" and "chronic" use of video news releases, only rarely identifying them as press releases - not objectively gathered, independent news. Others said they were used at least once a week. Even at stations that cut back after the Center for Media and Democracy fingered them for relying on VNRs, usage is creeping back up due to even more staff cuts. In order to keep the public from being subjected to advertisements masquerading as news, news shows need to have enough staff to do real reporting or else they are breaking the public's trust.

The problem of replacing full time, unionized employees with low pay, low rights "permatemps" has damaged news quality as well. It's clear how turning good jobs into permatemp gigs is bad for the employees, but did you know it also undermines the quality of your news? In the survey, the members who reported speaking out on news quality were three times more likely to be full-time staff than temporary employees. Some permatemps have worked at ABC or CBS for 15 years, yet never achieved full-time status or benefits. It's unfair to the employees and unfair to viewers too. The media is supposed to be a watchdog, but how can staff operate that way if they can be fired at the drop of a hat for speaking out?

more...

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/58325/#more

[leveymg]

1. Cost-cutting is one side of the problem. Edward R. Murrow would've been fired by Rupert Murdoch

Can you imagine Katie Couric taking on a Right-wing demagogue?

Can you imagine CBS or any of the other networks preempting their regular daytime schedules of soap operas and laundry detergent ads for live, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Army-McCarthy hearings or Watergate impeachment hearings? No way. The suits wouldn't allow it, and it isn't just because of a possible loss of ad revenues.

It's because the corporations that run major media news operations are the problem. They are the problem.

[DeSwiss]

2. Ironically, it was the success....

...of people like Murrow that made the power brokers realize the control and manipulation that could be wrought, if only television could be had. And had it was.

While most of the time I don't feel so privileged being as old as I am, this occasion is an exception. Because I do recall Edward R. Murrow's program "See It Now" on tv as a kid. When it came on, it was usually my signal to go outside and play. But I did watch sometimes. And I remember his ground-breaking program of black sharecroppers and tenant farmers living in destitution in the South as a re-broadcast in around 1959. It was a mind-boggling concept for the placid days of 50s and Eisenhower. A time when everyone believed that all was right with the world. Or so we were told.

But short of writing the press into the Constitution as a protected estate and watchdog over government, I know of no way in which its role as guardian over our liberties can be saved from the ravages of free enterprise's "supply and demand" model. Divestment and anti-monopolistic regulation now and for some time has largely been for show. As the global economy has blurred the distinctions between the players and their interests.

It is said, that he who plays piper calls the tune. In this case, the top 50 entities who finance the MSMs spent over $3 billion in advertising in 2005-06 on just cable alone. These are the shapers and distorter's of what we see:

Rank ADVERTISER - Top 50 Cable Advertisers of '05/06

Advertising Expenditures (in Millions $US)

1 PROCTER & GAMBLE CO $921
2 TIME WARNER INC $314
3 GENERAL MOTORS CORP $298
4 ALTRIA GROUP INC $248
5 DELL INC $226
6 SONY CORP $221
7 WALT DISNEY CO $212
8 SPRINT NEXTEL CORP $212
9 GENERAL MILLS INC $201
10 GE GENERAL ELECTRIC CO $191
11 GLAXOSMITHKLINE PLC $182
12 PETMED EXPRESS INC $181
13 US GOVT $179
14 VERIZON COMMUNICATIONS INC $178
15 PEPSICO INC $175
16 PUBLIC SERVICE ANN $165
17 KELLOGG CO $164
18 DAIMLERCHRYSLER AG $164
19 YUM BRANDS INC $162
20 FORD MOTOR CO $160
21 NATIONAL AMUSEMENTS INC 152
22 BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC 152
23 NEWS CORP 149
24 NOVARTIS AG 145
25 JOHNSON & JOHNSON 144
26 AT&T INC 144
27 PROGRESSIVE CORP 133
28 TOYOTA MOTOR CORP 127
29 HYUNDAI CORP 126
30 PFIZER INC 121
31 NESTLE SA 120
32 HONDA MOTOR CO LTD 120
33 MATTEL INC 119
34 UNILEVER 112
35 NISSAN MOTOR CO LTD 108
36 AMERICAN EXPRESS CO 99
37 BAYER AG GROUP 97
38 MCDONALDS CORP 96
39 NAUTILUS INC 95
40 SEARS HOLDINGS CORP 94
41 ALLSTATE CORP 92
42 CLOROX CO 91
43 CAPITAL ONE FINANCIAL CORP 90
44 SC JOHNSON & SON INC 84
45 COCA-COLA CO 83
46 HOME DEPOT INC 83
47 LOREAL SA 80
48 MARS INC 79
49 RAZOR & TIE DIRECT LLC 78
50 TEXAS PACIFIC GROUP 76

http://www.onetvworld.org/main/cab/research/AdvertisingExpenditures/top-50-cable-advertisers--6.shtml

So we can talk about the decline of the important role that newspapers, radio and television once had. And even the internet which has bogarded and elbowed its share of the advertising pie away from the others. But in the end, the answer lies in the advice of Deep Throat of Watergate fame: "Always follow the money."

The place where the money controls, is the place where responsibility lies for the diminished role of our press. It lays at the altar of lucre -- outstretched and vulnerable. A caricature of its once proud self -- a parody. Next, maybe the news will become a reality program where normal people report the news. And vote each other off the air for their bad stories. While we pull for one blond, blue-eyed, blow-dried reporter to find true love with the cute weather guy, or better still, pull for the underdog, The Best Boy.

Anything for ratings in the fine art of selling us soap....

IMHO

DeSwiss

K&R