Seems like the print media aren’t the only journos suffering in the Internet era. The Gaslight writes of how the local TV stations are hiring only people “capable of being able to do it all,” which is the kind of English one has come to expect from the video crowd.
Notes Paul Kavanaugh: “The local stations’ Pueblo bureaus, for example, used to be staffed by a reporter and a photographer. Now, they’re staffed by so-called ‘one-man bands’; one reporter writes, shoots, edits and broadcasts.”
Well, shucks. It makes a man’s eyes damp, for sure, as the late Hunter S. Thompson once said. The print people have been in that sinking ship for quite some time now, augmenting pad and pen with digital sound recorders, point-and-shoots and camcorders, and dashing out quick reports for dead-tree edition, website and blog.
And it only seems fair that TV should join newspapers in the Information Age tar pits, since the Internet is only finishing the job on the print media that TV started. Back in the day the local TV crowd piggy-backed on the daily newspaper, eschewing original reportage for the rip-and-read, whipping a slight rewrite on an ink-stained wretch’s story and shamelessly reading it before the camera. Occasionally we could recognize entire sentences lifted whole.
When the vidiots bothered to attend an event in corpus, the cameraman would often pan around over the audience. I had long hair and a beard then, and was something of a camera magnet, scribbling away on a note pad, and after seeing myself on TV a few times I took to scratching one cheek with an extended middle digit whenever the camera panned my way, bringing a quick end to my TV career.
My favorite moment remains an important school-board meeting disrupted by the video circus, which showed up late as always and bustled about, setting up tripods, lights and whatnot. The superintendent was well into his opening remarks, so naturally they asked that he start over from the beginning.
This was the last straw for my colleague from the smaller paper across town. She remarked, “Hey, assholes, the news doesn’t come packaged in tidy segments of 30 seconds apiece.”
It still doesn’t, of course, but that’s all you’re going to get in the era of the one-man band.
Mad Blog Media 
Does any aspect of “serious news” exist anymore, print, air, cable, etc. ?
NPR and the online NY Times is about all I pay attention to. Our local paper, the Monitor (aka “the Vomitor”) usually doesn’t even have enough substance to wrap fish. Its all about lining the pockets of investment corporations. News coverage be damned.
That’s a quaint story from another time, old friend. These days, TV would only show up at a school board meeting if the superintendent pulled out an assault rifle and started picking off board members. While wearing a tutu.
O’ course, the TV types would still show up late, and their video would be of yellow crime-scene tape flapping in the wind, with interviews of breathless neighbors who saw nothing and know less, but are happy to look into the camera and say stuff like: “I never expected nothin’ like this at a school board meeting.”
Back to you, Patrick.
You guys must realize that today “News” is a only a commodity to be sold. True news would have an effect on our personal lives. For Patrick, real news would be that Raton Pass is closed blocking his path to warmer climes. What you and I watch, or read, is only intended for entertainment purposes. Okay, some of it might not be; but most of it is.
You might take time to read a great book “Amusing Ourselves to Death” by Neil Postman.
“News” has never, ever existed as a public service. From the beginning, “freedom of the press” meant “freedom for those who owned printing presses” to do whatever they wanted. The squabbles between T Jefferson and J Adams make for some entertaining reading, and one quickly forgets that he is reading history and not a Shakespearian account of power gone mad and petty.
“News” has always been a commodity, either as a weapon to be used against a rival or just simply a way of making money.
For a tiny blip in history, the concept of news was tied to the idea of public service. That was a journalistic aligning of planets, as Uncle Sam decided that broadcasters could only keep their license is they gave us 30 minutes of non-profit air time, and at the same time, folks like Cronkite and Murrow came onto the picture.
Unfortunately, we get the news that we deserve. If we don’t support quality producers, they will dry up and go away. And if we waste two seconds of our time on the garbage, then they’ll get the mistaken idea that we approve of their product. It is completely in our own hands.
But again, unfortunately, most of us are idiots. As Dom Irrera would say, I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just biological wiring. We move against our own self-interests time and time again.
Interesting study I stumbled onto the other day … researchers broke their subjects into two groups. One group got a two digit number, the other a seven digit number. They had 30 seconds to memorize it, then they were to walk down the hall to another room and recite their number.
But here’s the trick: along the way to room #2, they were intercepted by someone who said that as research subjects, they were supposed to get snacks, but they were late. They are then asked in mid-project whether they would prefer a slice of cake or a fruit bowl.
Here’s what’s interesting: the two digit group picked the fruit 90% of the time, and the seven digit group picked the cake 90% of the time.
Why? Because when faced with complex tasks (like memorizing a bigger number), the rest of our brains shut down, and we go for the simpler answer that satisfies our more basic needs, instead of picking the option that’s better for us in the long run.
Now life makes sense to me! The tougher things are, the dumber we act. You see that every day. And when things get really tough, groups like the teabaggers pop up.
What does that have to do with news? Just that in a world of infinite choices, most people lock up and pick the cake. They pick the crap that they know is bad for them, just because it satisfies a base, emotional need. They watch Beck to get angry and don’t read the papers that make them think.
And speaking of news … very well done to VeloNews for the April 1st edition. Especially loved the touring piece.
Our local rag is pretty much worthless too. Restaurant ads, city council meetings.
It’s 83 degrees and sunny in Wisconsin today. Just sayin’! I’m taking the Kona Cinder Cone out for a spin.