The American Spectator

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Media Matters

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Major news media today has become an image-making enterprise, much more like the advertising agencies of classic Madison Avenue in the 1950s. And, just as with old-time Madison Avenue, people tell pollsters they don't trust reporters, "the media," as it is said now.

I used to watch cable TV news shows during the Clinton impeachment and think, "Can't people see what's going on?" Of course, people did, and people do, and major media nowadays, while not quite in its death throes -- it still controls the national hearthbeat, television -- is obviously fighting a desperate rearguard battle.

There may, indeed, come a media Waterloo, the ultimate convergence of declining TV news viewership, splintering audiences scattered across too many channels, and falling newspaper circulation and ad revenues. It may have begun already, in the coverage of the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito (I write this over the weekend of January 7-8). It should offer myriad opportunities for over-the-top outrage.

Because, in response to today's multi-element convergence, the media has not responded rationally. Offset printing was a technical revolution, resulting in capital re-investment. Television caused print consolidation. Today's competition, more like a death of a thousand cuts, has seen the media retreat into siege-like ideological solidarity. That just can't work, especially as the news product gets ever more predictable, and -- face it -- ever more dull.

The old fashioned "news triangle" was "facts -- interest -- readers" -- facts of interest to your readers. If you ignore facts, and the readers aren't interested anymore, there's simply nowhere to go.

Lawrence Henry writes every week from North Andover, Massachusetts.

topics:
Television, Business, Law, Supreme Court, Iraq