"Walter Cronkite Never Got to Say 'Semen Stain'"
"--but he's still alive; he still might say it!"

{ ON THE DECLINE OF NETWORK NEWS }

e l i z a b e t h b a r n e s

While researching for this issue, the Libertas staff discovered that the Library, in addition to books on the history of pantyhose and the ecology of wood lice (really), contains abstracts of all television news broadcasts dating back to the seventies. Our editors, who spend far too much time confined in the Libertas office, naturally got very excited about this. And so it was that I found myself trudging into the reference section of the E. H. Little Library on a dreary Monday morning, armed only with a pen, a notebook, and the diversion of the new Coldplay album spinning away in my Discman. My task: to read through the old transcripts and ask the question "What has changed?" The answer: a whole hell of a lot.

Once upon a time, apparently, the television news media labored under two key assumptions. First, that the average American viewer is decently intelligent. Second, that they actually care about international issues and the world around them. Tragically, of course, this lead to a bevy of news-reporting that focused on world politics, international relations, and news items of general long-term significance. We younger viewers, however, have mercifully been spared the grievous task of being asked to actually think while watching news broadcasts. A generation raised on microwave dinners and video games, we demand the same things from our news media that we do from pretty much everything else--be simple, be brief, and for the love of God don't be boring. Lucky for us, television news has been more than willing to meet our demands, and we now have news broadcasts with about the same intellectual content as an episode of Barney (only the singing dinosaur is replaced by a middle-aged white man with a Midwestern accent who wears ugly ties and appears to be suffering from a dreadful case of constipation).

The first thing I noticed in the older transcripts was their international focus. Political conflict in Hungary, border disputes in Southeast Asia, human rights violations in Eastern Europe--they were all addressed with depth and respect. I'm not just talking about a one-line references in "the overseas briefing"; these stories actually got substantial coverage and headline status. There was even an entire opening segment that did not even mention the United States. If you can imagine.

Now, of course, our television news media displays an American egoism that would make even Ayn Rand proud. We get reports like "as many as five persons may have sneezed today as a result of the dreaded West Nile virus; public health officials and the CDC are expending all available resources to circumvent this drastic threat to our nation. And in international news, over a quarter of the sub-Saharan African population is dying of AIDS."

But the older broadcasts went even further. Not just assuming that we actually care about things not directly related to our country, they even presumed to suppose that we had the capacity to understand those issues. So they went and started reporting on things like the effect of international trade on Japanese produce farmers, economic development in Iraq, and dollar devaluation (a term used without a detailed explanation of its meaning) right here in the US of A. It was substantive reporting that demanded attention, concentration, and reflection. So we got rid of it.

The modern news media, of course, understands that we viewers would quickly forgo newscasts like those described previously for old Seinfeld reruns, so we now encounter broadcasts filled with sensationalized headlines and simplistic stories. Even if the stories bear relatively minor repercussions, the media manages to exaggerate and draw them out if they hold the potential to boost those all-important Nielson ratings. For example, the number of people who actually died of Anthrax: 8; the number of television news stories on the Anthrax attacks: approximately 85 billion. (The number of '80s metal bands that had to change their names: 1.)

And with this trend towards dumbing-down and hyping-up comes a growing emphasis on personalities rather than actual issues. We were continually updated on the epic saga surrounding the fate of Ted Williams' corpse, and the whole nation grieved over the untimely and tragic death of former President Clinton's beloved Labrador Buddy. Meanwhile, due to unprecedented flooding, about half of Eastern Europe was underwater, and no one seemed to notice. Granted, of course, there were cults of personality in the '60s just like there are today; the public was fascinated with "Camelot," touch-football, and all things Kennedy (but then JFK went and got himself shot and we had real news again). But the important point is that these reports were balanced with more significant issues and substantial journalism.

Admittedly, there have been some improvements as well. More women and minorities are featured in network broadcasts, and sports coverage has been largely relegated to local newscasts. Plus, you know you enjoyed seeing Tom Brokaw forced to discuss whether or not oral sex actually constitutes sex. Admit it.

My overall impression from reading the transcripts, however, is that modern television newscasts tend to imply that Americans are blissfully unaware of international issues (except for those pertaining to certain Middle Eastern countries, but only because we want to blow them up) and, for the most part, pretty stupid. I left the library wondering just how accurate that characterization might be.