Here's a case in point: CBS Evening News anchor, Katie Couric.
Not only is she constantly under fire from TV critics, but also from her peers. Dan Rather said she is "dumbing it down, tarting it up, going to celebrity coverage rather than war coverage", and at $15m a year, I'm sure she cries every night into a pillow of money, since it is Rather's shoes that she now fills. But I fear that Desperate Dan has missed the point somewhat on what has happened to CBS Evening News. Firstly, it's on in the evening, at around 6.30pm. And let's face it, your average American worker simply doesn't work 9-5 anymore, with a nice 20 minute commute to arrive home in time to sit by the TV and watch it. Any of it.
Secondly, there's no news there. And the link in the first paragraph of this little diatribe shows that off for all it's worth. There's no news anywhere. Insider is not much more than an extention of the evening news, these days, and actually, if you include the follow up Entertainment Tonight program, which is basically the same thing but with a different presenter, it actually lasts longer. Sure, we get 1.5 hours of local news before that, but with generally only 5 local reporters, how many real stories are getting? And this is just CBS. NBC also has its Nightly News show which is then followed by Extra! and Access Hollywood. ABC has the ABC World News show, which is the biggest misnomer I've ever seen, as unless a bomb has gone off somewhere, you're lucky if the 'World' extends beyond Central America, and by Central America, I mean Kansas.
So why is US television news so bad these days, when all you have to do is see 'Good Night and Good Luck' to realize that it was, once, extremely good?
It's not money, but it is. Even back then in the age of the Burrows' and the Cronkites, news departments had to pander somewhat to sponsors. For every stone turned, there had to be one unturned. But back then news departments were expected to still provide news items, even if the content may be a little suspect, and the reason behind that is that those departments were expected to lose money. They were festering sink-holes of cash for a major network who were prepared to lose it for the sake of quality journalism. Not highly-paid anchors, but actual quality journalism. Now, however, we have shifted to news departments which are expected to make profits, in the same way that tabloid newspapers do, by sensationalizing real-world events, and by filling your screen with pointless stories of pretty starlets and things either shock you or make you go 'awww!'. Of course, none of this is revelation, but strangely it seems to be missed by the networks themselves,and this is why I mention Katie Couric by name.
Ever since Couric took over the hot-seat at CBS, the Evening News ratings have tanked, and this has been such a tale for national debate that it would cause otherwise respected journos such as Dan Rather to make the remarks he made. Overlooked slightly is that Brian Williams and NBC's Nightly News has ratings that are falling faster than those of CBS, but that CBS still remains last, with Charles Gibson's ABC World News coming out on top.
Even more overlooked than all of this is that ratings, when news is concerned, shouldn't actually be a factor. No news show should be deciding what constitutes a worthy news story based on whether it will put butts on seats, they should be reporting the news, period. You don't want to be showing the same stories at the same time as everyone else? Then stagger your broadcast, rather than having 3 major networks broadcast the evening news at exactly the same time, followed by 2 networks going to into exactly the same post-news programming. It seems there are two reasons why ratings are tanking for evening news: one, the lack of news; two, there's no one there to watch it. Replace your pointless entertainment shows with a news broadcast at 7.30pm instead of 6.30, and you may pick up a whole bunch of viewers, if there's still time before the country forgets what good news is and starts thinking that US Weekly is more important than USA Today.
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