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Re: Tuesday, January 8, 2002
There has always been a "church and state" distinction between journalism and the advertising that pays for it. And there has been hand-wringing about the blurring of distinctions between news and entertainment: Interviewed on the completion of his 50th year in TV, Hewitt expressed his concern about blurring: "For the old news giants, the motto was, 'News is news and entertainment is entertainment, and never the twain shall meet.' Well, the twain have met. And it's not good." He also deplored the lowering of standards on prime-time news shows: "You end up doing these consumer-oriented 'news you can use' stories, and celebrity interviews." That was Sixty Minutes' Don Hewitt, four years ago, when the modus operandi of his own show had already made his remarks ironic. Since then commerical TV news has become plainly more compelled by the need to both cut costs and obtain ratings in ways its bosses best know how: by entertaining people. That requires two obvious strategies: 1) create and employ attractive stars; and 2) tell stories. And if that's not a good enough answer, let's ask another question. When there were three TV networks in the U.S., and all three had large news operations with permanent bureaus and seasoned correspondents all over the world, would any of them have promoted one of their correspondents as "sexy?" There are responses to this message:
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