What needs to be fixed in television news most?

[Sammi Brie]

What is it that television news must do the most urgently to fix itself? What are its problems and why? How has it fallen into the ditch it has today?

I want to start a conversation, an open-ended conversation. What must be fixed in TV news to bring it back?

 

[recto101]

Too Much Propaganda shows like Hannity and Maddow on Fox News, MSNBC and HLN when they are labeled news and not propaganda

 

[Sammi Brie]

I'm mainly focusing on local television here, but that is something of interest. However there always has been and always will be a market for political news/talk on TV, and that fills it very well.

 

[Silkie]

They all cover all the exact same stories, usually in the same order. Nobody really bothers to pay attention to them anymore.

 

[landtuna]

The true news shows need to go back to the standard set in the 60's before "happy news" became the norm.

Report genuine news items of national or local interest.

Note to local news producers:

1. It is NOT necessary to have your reporters standing in front of a jail to report the capture of a escapee or at the airport to talk about the latest TSA snafu.
2. It is NOT necessary to run a 10-second video loop three or four times while your reporter reads her script. And, if you are going to run a video along with the story, make sure it is relevant and timely. Nothing worse than something weeks or months old which has been run before.
3. Weather needs to be reported only once during the show. And stop the stupid wx teases.
4. Stop trying to tease a story at 5, 5:30 and 6 for the 10PM newscast. It is juvenile.
5. Want to run a 30-second story followed by 4 minutes of commercial? Say goodbye to viewers.
6. House fires and car wrecks are not usually important. Kill 'em unless they are of compelling reason.
7. We don't need to know about the latest animal birth at the Berlin zoo.
8. Focus on REAL NEWS! (That does NOT include presidential lunches or swimming at Martha's Vineyard).

 

[RicoGregg]

Mr. Landtuna, rather than take up space quoting your entire post, I'll save time and space by just saying: I couldn't agree with you MORE!

Here in L.A., the local news has become virtually unwatchable. Fluff-filled. Anchorwomen, field reporters, and the like dressed like cheap floozies or even whores. Too much in-humor chuckling. No serious business atmosphere. Too many pretty-boy types. Real journalists have just about totally disappeared.

Lisa Guerrero, when she worked at CBS/2 here a few years back, provided howls of laughter when she snapped at a newspaper reporter who had criticized her in print, "I'm a serious journalist!"

After over 30 years in broadcasting, mostly radio, I came to realize that consultants are a necessary evil, but what they have done to TV news since the 1970s I don't think has exactly been doing society any favors.

If no one else will say it, I will: As someone who has wanted to be in the media since I was a kid in the Eisenhower 50s, I personally am sick and tired of seeing broadcasting prostitute itself for the Almighty Dollar and the even Mightier Rating.

 

[imhomerjay]

And seeing as they're businesses, exactly how should they operate if not making money?

The issue isn't the news media, it's "us" (broadly defined), the viewing public. If there was money to be made in that old-school style, you know someone would be chasing it. But there isn't. You can drop all that stuff, and have no one watch. Then promptly go broke, and have nothing at all to show for it. Nothing accomplished that way.

 

[Bengalsfan]

The two most overused words in the TV news lexicon "Breaking News". I swear, our local NBC affiliate had at the top of their newscast today, breaking news of a house fire started by an air conditioner. Nobody was hurt, the fire was knocked down in about 15 minutes and video from the live shot was not impressive, but it warranted the 'breaking news' tag. The very next story was also "breaking news". It was of a man in Shepherdsville who was shot Friday dying yesterday.

The term 'breaking news' used to refer to spot news happening now and effecting a majority of the viewing public. And it used to get attention.

Because of the popularity of shows such as Extra and Entertainment Tonight, news producers now feel like they must change and lower themselves to the standards of these shows. News shows and tabloid shows used to be totally different animals. Now you cannot tell one from the other.

And just to clear up some misconceptions, shows like Rachel Maddow, Sean Hannity, Keith Olberman and Bill O'Reilly shows are opinion shows. Regardless of if you agree with the opinions on said shows, they are not news shows by the loosest of definitions.

 

[gregg75]

In Atlanta most network channels have local new from 4-6:30 PM. It's basically the same 10 stories repeated about 5 times, unless news is breaking. It seems to be an easy way to earn money for the stations............kind of like a local news infomercial. Watching it for 2 1/2 hours would make me want to jump out a window.

 

[KentBrockman]

Longer reports on more meaningful issues. Lindsay Lohan goes to jail is not news. I'd rather watch a station will a smaller staff that covers pertinent stories instead of a station with a large news department that covers meaningless stuff.

Simpler graphics that don't take up nearly half of the screen, fly around or make strange noises when they appear. :

Less chit-chat... keep the show moving.

Simpler sets... Why do newscasts now look like they are doing the show from the TV department at the local Best Buy? Too many monitors in the background are distracting. A simple blue or even black backdrop will put more focus on the anchor and the story.

I wish at least one station in a market would take this approach as an alternative to the other cookie-cutter newscasts that are put on.

 

[gr8oldies]

Yes, we can spend more time covering city council meetings and less time covering car wrecks and fires, stop promoting the next newscast, read a 30 second weather forecast with no graphics...and fail miserably. Old school news with no fluff and celebrity news is available nationally on PBS..and the Lehrer hour is nowhere near number one.

 

[LKellerIII]

I'm mainly focusing on local television here, but that is something of interest. However there always has been and always will be a market for political news/talk on TV, and that fills it very well.

Since you're focusing on local news, I'd have to say that local news in the San Francisco Bay Area is not "in a ditch" - it's really very straight forward and decent on the 4 network O&Os or affiliates, respectively.

Having said that, it's hardly perfect, and I do agree with most of the items on Landtuna's list. The "live" report on the 11:00 News is particularly ridiculous considering that 90% of the time, it's not breaking news, it's just the reporter introducing the tape that was shot and edited at 5:00. But to me, that's more of a drag for those reporters than anybody else. If I were the News Director, the only live stories I'd run on the late news would be breaking stories. Otherwise, I'd roll tape, and send the reporters home to be with their families.

The 70s were much worse for news here - with pompous and over-priced Action News style anchors competing with each other to do those "if it bleeds it leads" stories, and those titillating sweeps weeks exposes on porn, teen prostitution, etc.

In my opinion, local news is much better now - at least where I live.

 

[Markxxx]

I don't think you can "fix" it. You can't go back. Just like newspapers can't go back to their heyday, neither can TV news.

I like hard news, but with the Internet, I can Google News a story and get the hard news, just the facts quickly.

I would say I don't disagree with any of the above poster. I personally would love the changes suggested, but I don't see it ever happening. Those are things of the past.

You know the "times they are a-changing"

 

[landtuna]

This is no scientific opinion but personal observation.

I know of no one under the age of 30 who watches TV news. Nor do they listen to radio news. Nor do they read a newspaper.

TV/radio pandering to the bottom line have effectively killed off the next generation of news viewers/listeners.

 

[quadraphonic]

Like gr8oldies said about Lehrer being there, if you want oldschool news, and someone else said about consultants. There's no real way to "fix" tv news without fixing the viewers. The consulants drive the train, and they want the most viewers errrrrr passengers they can get.
Maybe if some consultant somewhere could find some grand money-savings or some other benefit for oldschool news and promote it on some station somewhere, it would catch on in all our local markets.
But it won't until they think it will get more viewers.
Plus, I kinda think that the hosts like dressing like floozies and showing off their new flickering display-laden sets. Not many of them would accept "oldschool" as the new alternative.

 

[imhomerjay]

TV/radio pandering to the bottom line have effectively killed off the next generation of news viewers/listeners.

As if doing what they did 20, 30 or 40 years ago would be attracting the next generation?

 

[formeraa]

This is no scientific opinion but personal observation.

I know of no one under the age of 30 who watches TV news. Nor do they listen to radio news. Nor do they read a newspaper.

TV/radio pandering to the bottom line have effectively killed off the next generation of news viewers/listeners.

When I see retrospectives of early (50's) newscasts, almost all of them include live advertising of some sort -- often by the news anchors themselves. I assume that they did these types of live commercials because they NEEDED the advertiser's MONEY to survive. Every industry has evolved since then because they must be economically viable -- just as airlines didn't need a third pilot in the cockpit as technology evolved.

We can criticize tv news (and you've listed a bunch of valid concerns). However, tv stations now put on a lot more newscasts than they did back in the good old days. In the 70's, there wasn't local news from 4:30am to 10am, noon, 4, 5, 6, 6:30, 9, and 10pm.

If I had one complaint, it's that the stations do very little in true breaking news situations. Last night in Phoenix, the weather radars started showing intense storms moving into the Phoenix area during the 9pm and 10pm newscasts. Did any station stay on longer to give us the latest news and weather during the intense storms after 10:30pm??? Of course, NOT!

 

[Sammi Brie]

This is no scientific opinion but personal observation.

I know of no one under the age of 30 who watches TV news. Nor do they listen to radio news. Nor do they read a newspaper.

TV/radio pandering to the bottom line have effectively killed off the next generation of news viewers/listeners.

When I see retrospectives of early (50's) newscasts, almost all of them include live advertising of some sort -- often by the news anchors themselves. I assume that they did these types of live commercials because they NEEDED the advertiser's MONEY to survive. Every industry has evolved since then because they must be economically viable -- just as airlines didn't need a third pilot in the cockpit as technology evolved.

We can criticize tv news (and you've listed a bunch of valid concerns). However, tv stations now put on a lot more newscasts than they did back in the good old days. In the 70's, there wasn't local news from 4:30am to 10am, noon, 4, 5, 6, 6:30, 9, and 10pm.

If I had one complaint, it's that the stations do very little in true breaking news situations. Last night in Phoenix, the weather radars started showing intense storms moving into the Phoenix area during the 9pm and 10pm newscasts. Did any station stay on longer to give us the latest news and weather during the intense storms after 10:30pm??? Of course, NOT!

Agreed. It was raining here by 8:30 and lasted well into the midnight hour. And the newscasts were dead quiet. Heck, Jayme King giving weather every five minutes would have been acceptable even!

 

[landtuna]

As if doing what they did 20, 30 or 40 years ago would be attracting the next generation?

The youngsters are not stupid. They can see that the "news" as it is presented today means little to their world. The few stories that are relevant and also covered in enough detail do not come often enough to hold their interest.

They are also not yet creatures of habit having never developed the habit of TV/radio news. Something has to attract them and it isn't blow-dried airheads yukking it up between human interest stories or a whale stranding in New Zealand.

The next generation of news viewers/listeners must be shown that serious news is important to them and can be presented without tricks, stalls and inappropriate time-wasters. Otherwise there will be no next generation and the already useless broadcast news will disappear completely (along with the incessant car and medicine ads that proliferate these shows).

 

[imhomerjay]

And virtually every time that's done, it's a dud. Failure upon failure. Trying to force-feed them an approach that die for a reason decades ago isn't going to do much to bring people in (and they're watching just as much TV as ever). The newsweeklies, newspapers...all struggling to hold on.

The clock moves one direction, and it ain't backwards.