Print and Broadcast News:
News Media in trouble
I am a lifer!
What do I mean by that? I know, to some it means a person who has been convicted of a nasty offence and is sentenced to a life term (or more) for the dirty deed.
I have never been convicted of a nasty offence, at least not yet anyway. I could be convicted, however, for something nasty. I could be convicted for the nasty crime of having been a nightly viewer of the evening national and local news cast. A crime because it’s almost a crime to subject ones self to the nightly barrage of the most depressing and saddening list of stories anyone could ever imagine sitting through just moments before I close my eyes to sleep each night!
It is obvious that the editors of all the news outlets I experience, do make some effort to include light hearted stories that take some of the edge out of the list murders, bombings and political fraudsters that we can’t seem to get enough of, or maybe we have? Maybe we have had enough?
The news media, both in print and broadcast have been taking hits of their own of late. Print is going the way of the Dodo bird, and that’s sad because I do enjoy browsing through the pages from time to time. Broadcast news, both on Television and on radio has been seeing ratings plummet as news seekers can and do time shift/download their own pick from the worlds multitude of sources, and this leaves the live media with a problem: how to generate revenue when no one is watching the commercials?
Day after day we are learning of yet another news room that is closing up shop. Sad, I am a firm believer in what good investigative reporting can do. No, not the kind that rehashes a murder mystery with disregard for formal court procedures. I’m taking the kind of reporting that goes the distance in revealing when we are being taken by corporations, government and the like.
What’s gone wrong?
In this humble artists point of view, I say we are all getting pretty sick, after a day long of commuting, working, family stress, financial stress to sit down and listen to the Barbie doll anchor tell us about todays bloody murders, complete with mind numbing graphic images to boot, only to quickly pose a smile as they tell us about Kim Kardashian’s wardrobe slip…!
I never minded watching Lloyd Robertson of Harvey Kirk, with their grey hair and wrinkles tell me the news of the day. In those days there were no warnings of graphic images. Just the news.
The envelope has been pushed. I don’t know how news anchors can handle reading such stories night after night, one would think that they are as in need of P.T.S.D. treatment as anyone else!
I’m sick of it. I stopped watching. I suggest that many many others have already beat me to the punch. That, my friend, is the reason why the News Media is in trouble.
R.M.
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