May
20
2009
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Podhoretz Nails It |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Wednesday, 20 May 2009 |
In discussing the decline of weekly news magazines, John Podhoretz explains the decline in media in general :
"Why was the Time of my professional youth so successful? Because its readers hadn’t died off yet. Because cable news hadn’t hit yet. Because news organizations hadn’t surrendered to the siren song of soft puff pieces that completely destroyed their authority with the readers they still had."
It is not just news magazines and flag-ship newspapers but the entire media universe all the way down to local TV news.
When I was producing the 6 & 10 p.m. news at the CBS affiliate in Topeka, KS the management commissioned a massive market research study by a consulting firm.
The firm came back with their results of the "news" people wanted to see. It was not news, it was fluff.
And while the station retained its top spot in the ratings, total viewers kept slipping.
Another market reasearch poll was conducted and the news cast was loaded with even more fluff and coverage of meaningless events.
Total viewers continued to decline.
Perhaps because I was the only person in the newsroom who studied economics and philosophy vice journalism, I saw the flaw in the poll. It was a random sample of people who owned telephones and did not test in whether or not they actually watched the news.
At one time the local evening newscast was a mass market product--there was nothing else to watch.
With cable and satellite, there are hundreds of other options. News has become a niche, but the station still thought they were a mass market product.
Instead of focusing on what the core of news viewers wanted to see, the station offered them fluff and car crashes with the occasional government or elected official at a press conference.
There is still a market for hard news and in-depth reporting. It is the same size as it always was. There is plenty of "analysis" and opinion chatter. But the organization that fills the gap with real, important, unbiased information will be well positioned for the future.
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