We recently attended presentations by Ted Koppel, formerly of ABC Nightline, and Steve Kroft, 60 Minutes correspondent.
Koppel compared today’s journalism to that of the Vietnam War era, noting for example, that video clips often took three days to get from Vietnam to our TV screens, while today it’s a matter of minutes.
Kroft traced how 60 Minutes stories are uncovered, researched and produced, noting some stories can take as much as a year to air.
The commonality of their talks bemoaned the balkanization of American journalism into conservative and liberal camps, as well as discussed their impression that consumers simply tune in to news media that reflect their personal views; i.e., if you’re conservative you stick to FoxNews, if you’re liberal, you will watch mostly MSNBC.
Koppel compared this current state to the era when three networks existed and because they utilized public airways, the federal government required them to air news that people needed to hear – as determined by a very small group of producers.
Today, the proliferation of news and opinion programs, blogs and other news sources democratizes the consumer’s news gathering. Most reasonable people do not rely on a single news source or single news media for all their information. It’s not hard to figure out that Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly are hardly objective journalists. Nor is it difficult to determine where on the political spectrum The New York Times and Wall Street Journal lie. Indeed, even the three original networks’ mandate to provide information people “need to know” can be called into question. Koppel cited the evening when Katie Couric’s lead story on the CBS Evening News announced that Tiger Woods would play at the Masters.
In today’s news environment quality information and sources rise to the surface. In the blogosphere, sites such as GigaOm have gained a reputation for quality news, information and informed opinions, while other bloggers have failed to gain a similar quality reputation.
We think most people are smart enough to discern quality information from misinformation and make sensible choices. Ted and Steve aren’t giving today’s news consumer enough credit.
