the natives are restless

It’s easy to lament the state of contemporary TV news. Too easy, I’d argue. The news is either biased (e.g., Fox, MSNBC) or irrelevant (the networks), according to the typical complaints. The problem with this conventional wisdom is that the analysis tends to end with either all-powerful evil overlords (Ailes or Murdoch at Fox) or corporate conspiracies (General Electric, parent company of NBC/MSNBC).

It’s a mindset that assigns too much agency to individuals. The transformation of TV news – from Murrow and Cronkite (then) to Hannity and Olbermann (now) – is an inevitable consequence of secular trends in technology and culture. Rupert Murdoch is simply the guy who hitched his wagon most enthusiastically to these trends, while others tried to fight them.

The key concept in understanding this transformation is choice (see Markus Prior for a book-length treatment.) This may seem obvious, but it has some surprising consequences. On the day JFK was shot in late 1963, viewers could choose among ABC, CBS, and NBC for their news. Now, of course, we have a variety of other news channels, including a few dedicated, 24-hour news outlets (CNN, Fox, MSNBC). But what’s more important are the hundreds of other non-news channels – ESPN for sports, CNBC for business, HBO for movies, etc.

Why is that so important? In 1963, many people “watched” the news even if they weren’t particularly interested in politics or current events. They saw the news while they waited for other shows to start – the baseball game, perhaps, or ‘I Love Lucy.’ People stayed informed about domestic and world affairs, if only superficially — almost by osmosis.

The news broadcasts of the day reflected this diverse audience (diverse in interests, motivation, education, and attention) – staid, centrist, and “objective.” Cronkite may have been the “most trusted man in America,” but that was made possible by the context in which he operated – the one-size-fits-all broadcast. In 2009, there’s no such thing as “the most trusted man in America” – and there probably never will be again.

The old-school evening news was a public service – and indeed even Cronkite’s show was a loss-leader for CBS. Not surprisingly, the one contemporary news program that most resembles the pre-cable-era broadcasts is PBS’ The News Hour – quite literally, a taxpayer-funded public service.

Now, of course, people uninterested in current events can simply tune in to ESPN and watch sports all day. As a result, the audience for news fundamentally changes. The only people left are people who want to watch news – that is, highly motivated, highly informed* citizens. What’s more, according to some recent work in political science, highly “informed” people also tend to be more partisan.

Another consequence of increased choice? Competition. With the advent of cable, the Big 3 networks could no longer afford their news broadcasts to be loss-leaders. Quite the contrary, the new breed of news programs are lucrative profit centers! The comfortable oligopoly enjoyed by the Big 3 is  now a free market.

What thrived in the new free marketplace of news? Entertainment. Sex, scandal, outrage, and partisanship. By 6pm, most news junkies already know the “facts” of the day’s events from the internet. By 6pm they want to know what they should think about those facts. They’re relaxing on the couch with a beer, in front of a massive high-def flat-panel TV, and they want to be entertained, titillated.

What I’m describing is a confluence of forces – a less diverse, more partisan audience, media conglomerates in search of new profit centers – that inevitably produces the current landscape of TV news. Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes are merely bit players in a decades-long drama. And in this new landscape, the lowest common denominator always wins.

In a capitalist society, competition usually raises product quality. Not in the news business (unless you measure “quality” with a plethysmograph). Real news must always be subsidized, whether by advertising, taxpayer money, or entertainment. And with ad dollars heading to the internet, and endless Republican attempts to dismantle public broadcasting… what’s left?

Lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

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* I mean “informed” in the most literal sense – that is, one who consumes lots of information. How people process and integrate that information into opinions and belief systems is another matter.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 2:43 pm and is filed under media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.