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Blow up the TV, and think for yourself

November 20, 2009 12:36 am

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

--James Madison

CHARLOTTESVILLE

Reliance on TV news has given rise to such popular personalities such as Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Wolf Blitzer, and Lou Dobbs, among others, who draw in vast audiences that hang on their every word. In our media age, these are the new powers-that-be. Given the preponderance of news-as-entertainment programming, have viewers lost the ability to differentiate between news commentary and news reporting?

There is not much that the average viewer can do to change the nature of television news. While it cannot--and should not--be completely avoided, the following suggestions will help to better understand the nature of TV news and minimize its impact.

THIS JUST IN

TV news is not what happened. Rather, it is what someone thinks is worth reporting. Although there are some good TV reporters, the old art of investigative reporting has largely been lost. While viewers are often inclined to take what is reported by television "news" hosts at face value, it is their responsibility to analyze what is reported.

TV news is entertainment; the programs you watch are called news "shows." It's a signal that so-called news is being delivered as a form of entertainment. "In the case of most news shows," write Neil Postman and Steve Powers in their insightful book, "How to Watch TV News" (1992), "the package includes attractive anchors, an exciting musical theme, comic relief, stories placed to hold the audience, the illusion of intimacy, and so on."

The point of all this glitz is to keep viewers glued to the set so that a product can be sold. (The TV news hosts get in on the action by peddling their own products, everything from their latest books to mugs and bathrobes.) Although news items spoon-fed to viewers may have some value, they are primarily a commodity to gather an audience, which will in turn be sold to advertisers.

In an average household, the television set is on for more than seven hours a day. Most people, believing themselves in control of their media consumption, are not bothered by this. But TV is a two-way attack: It delivers programming to homes, and delivers viewers/consumers to a sponsor.

People who watch the news tend to be more attentive, educated, and have more money to spend. They are a prime market for advertisers, and sponsors spend millions on well-produced commercials. Commercials are often longer in length than most news stories and cost more to produce than the stories themselves. Moreover, the content of many commercials, which often contradicts the messages of the news stories, cannot be ignored.

WHO OWNS WHOM

There are few independent news sources: Major news outlets are owned by corporate empires. General Electric owns the entire stable of NBC shows, including MSNBC, which it co-owns with Microsoft (the "MS" in MSNBC stands for Microsoft). Both GE and Microsoft poured millions of dollars into the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush. CBS is owned by Westinghouse; Disney owns ABC. CNN is owned by Time-Warner; Fox News Channel is owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

This begs the question: How can a corporate news network present objective news if it is financially supporting a political candidate or promoting a message to a specific audience? Fox is aimed at conservatives, while MSNBC is the mirror image aimed at liberals--and so are their commercials. "One doesn't have to be a Marxist," note Postman and Powers, "to assume that people making a million dollars a year will see things differently from people struggling to make ends meet." This is why it is so important to get differing views on the news and from sources that present a different view than what is seen on corporate news networks.

Special attention should be paid to the language of newscasts. Because film footage and other visual imagery are so engaging, viewers are apt to allow language--what the reporter is saying about the images--to go unexamined. A TV news host's language frames the pictures; therefore, the meaning we derive from the picture is often determined by the host's commentary. We must never forget that every television minute has been edited. The viewer does not see the actual event but the edited form of the event. Presenting a one- to two-minute segment from a two-hour political speech and having a talk-show host critique may be disingenuous, but such edited footage is a regular staple.

Viewers should reduce by at least half the amount of TV news they watch. It generally consists of "bad" news--wars, torture, murders, scandals, and so forth. They should not form their concept of reality based on television. Studies indicate that heavy viewing of TV news makes people think the world is more dangerous than it actually is. "Watching television, including news shows, makes people somewhat more depressed than they otherwise would be," say Postman and Powers.

FORM YOUR OWN OPINION

One of the reasons many people are addicted to TV news is that they feel they must have an opinion on almost everything, giving the illusion of participation in American life. But an "opinion" is all that we can gain from TV news because it presents only the most rudimentary information on any topic. We are expected to take what the TV news host says on an issue as gospel. We need to realize that we often don't have enough information from the "news" source to form a true opinion. This can be done by reading good books, newspapers, and the Internet, and by listening to the radio. A variety of sources should be studied (including television commentators) in order to be better informed.

Americans should beware of letting others--whether television news hosts, political commentators, or media corporations--do their thinking for them.

John Whitehead is president and founder of the Rutherford Institute.