It's Not Your Father's Newscast Anymore

Article 12 “You - .News” It’s not your father’s newscast anymore

Call it “News Lite” or “‘News you can use”--by whatever name, TV is racing for relevance. But what gets lost along the way?

Andie Tucher

om Brokaw comes to our tele- teen weeks. @uring the week ending phone interview loaded for POLITICIANS March 7, for instance, NBC had an 8.8 bear To my boilerplate ques- rating, an 18 share, and an average of tion-“How do you respond to 12.01 million viewers; ABC came in at theT critics who say your newscast has 8.5/17 with 11.16 million viewers; and become softer?“-he snaps back that JOURNALISTS ALIKE CBS at 7.6/16 with 9.95 million viewers.) many of the critics are also competi- And this advance comes at a time tors with agendas of their own. WANT YOU TO when the market for network evening ‘There is an elitist, myopic point of KNOW THEY ARE news is inexorably shrinking through- view about what these broadcasts have out the 1970s the three network news- been and what they should be,” he JUST FOLKS WHO casts together would routinely attract says, “and I’m getting a little weary of up to three-quarters of the viewing it. There are no important stories we FEEL YOUR PAIN audience, but Nielsen reports that the have missed.” After we hang up, he combined audience share for the three calls me back to say I had overstated has now slipped under 50 percent. the length of a piece I had mentioned ing over as the new top dog in the rat- But edgy rivals aside, Brokaw’s as an example of a softer story-two ings war among the Big Three. From slicked-up newscast would still be ripe minutes on the Oregon death-penalty mid-December through mid-March for reassessment. While all the net- laws for sheep-chasing dogs-and to Brokaw’s half-hour evening broad& works have been tinkering with their remind me that critics have their own consistently edged out-barely but vis- programs, The Nightly News with lbm agendas. ibly-the seven-year ratings leader, Brokaw has given itself an inside-and- Of course they do. Some of the criti- AECs World News l’bnight with Peter out makeover. NBC’s broadcast now cism does come from rivals at CBS and Jennings, winning ten times, tying sports a hipper, more high-tech feel, ABC, who fear that NBC may be tak- three, and placing second once in four- with a new video-wall backdrop,

From ColumbialotdiSm Review May&me 1997. pp. 26-31. 0 1997 by Columbia journalism Review. Reprint& by 74 permission. 12. “You News” Brokaw’S face in a monitor mirroring at’s more, the newscasts’ have been provided with “news you Brokaw’s face on Brokaw himself, core viewers tend to be can use” about, among other topics, Brokaw’s face appearing suddenly on older; The Pew Research clot busters, osteoporosis, memory loss the giant video screen overlooking Center reckons that almost macular degeneration, allergies, diabel Times Square as he signs off. Where Wtwo-thirds of people over sixty-four tes, male menopause, estrogen, blood once the airtime was full of congres- watch a network newscast “regularly,” transfusions, brain injuries, Alzhei- sional wrangles and Middle East peace while less than a quarter of GenXers mer’s, flu, antihistamines, panic at- talks, now it’s heavy with medical do. So “sooner or later the current tacks, arthritis, beta blockers, grapes news and features from fly-over coun- news audience is all going to die,” says as cancer fighters, uterine fibroids try NBC has indeed gone softer and Andrew Tyndall, editor of the !l)ndall obesity, drinking and driving, car: more user-friendly-‘populist,” NBC Weekly, which tracks and times the phoning and driving, and mammo- executives like to call it-and Brokaw stories covered on the evening news. grams. “The New England Journal of argues urgently that “what we’re at- “And that’s sooner rather than later.” Medicine should be charging,” says tempting to do is to cover the impor- In some fundamental ways the Sandy Socolow, a former executive pro- tant news of the day and the news that three newscasts haven’t broken far ducer for Walter Cronkite at CBS. “All is relevant to our viewers, and that from tradition-or from each other. All three broadcasts are mesmerized by news now has a much different woof pay due attention to the obvious anything that involves the human and warp than it did twenty-five years breaking stories: none could have been body-and I’m not talking about sex.” ago.” accused of ignoring either the verdict What distinguishes NBC now is Brokaw’s competitors detect a be- against 0. J. Simpson or the death of that both the gossamer and the useful trayal of journalistic standards in all Deng Xiaoping. After some initial foot- often outweigh the grit. Its Nightly this. CBS anchor Dan Rather told The dragging all have recently been doing News tends to air fewer stories each Philadelphia Inquirer in February that a “pretty good job” covering the hot po- evening than ABC or CBS, and far NBC was purveying ‘News Lite.” In litical story of the day-the campaign fewer of those come from the national late March, when Paul Friedman fund-raising scandals-says Bill Hogan capitals, whether Moscow, Belgrade, or ABC’s executive vice president fo; director of investigative projects at Thi yes, Washington. More of them focud news, also took back his old job as the Center for Public Integrity in Washing- on trends, life-style and consumer is- newscast’s executive producer, he told ton, a watchdog group that monitors sues, pop culture, and heartland Amer- The Washington Post that ABC would political spending. ica-and NBC isn’t hiding its Lite “cover serious news that the others under a bushel, either. An ad for the can’t manage.” newscast appearing in The New York But the old polarity between “soft” Times on March 28 touted what was and “hard” news is itself something of AN AD IN obviously considered the evening’s hot- a red herring. That’s because NBC’s test story: ‘Marriage Boot Camp’: Nightly News is not simply replacing THE NEW YORK Could it Save Your Relationship?’ (The coverage of world events with tradi- story was bumped by the news of the tional soft features on heroic rescues TIMES TOUTED California cult suicide and actually or celebrity comebacks. NBC’s produc- THE EVENING’S aired April 4.) ers, not unlike their fellows at the Brokaw says he’s simply “trying to other networks, have discovered that HOTTEST STORY= be less of a wire service of the air? be- in addition to the old categories of thi cause it’s clear people have already news you need and the news you want “MARRIAGE ‘BOOT heard the major news of the day by they can add a third type of newd the time they click on the evening that’s flourishing in the ’90s: news CAMP’: COULD IT news. “I travel across this country a about you-news to use at your next SAVE YOUR lot,” he says, “and everywhere I go I doctor’s visit, PTA meeting, or family hear what people are talking about dinner-table discussion. RELATIONSHIP?” and what interests them and what The special problems of the network they are desperate to know about. And news in the ’90s are legion. It’s not just a whole lot of that has very little to do that many people are too busy, too All include, as they always have with what we would routinely put on cynical, or too turned off by public life bright bits of the “news you want”‘: the air ten-fifteen years ago.” to enjoy the evening-news habit. It’s softer stories like the return of Star Last year, according to Tyndall also that so many have been able to Wars and mushy little tributes to Val- viewers were apparently most desperl go elsewhere-and everywhere-for entine’s Day. And all air a weekly slate ate to know about the summer Olym- their news, from CNN to all-news ra- of regular segments, ranging from pics, which were broadcast by NBC dio to the Internet to local television ‘Your Money” and “Eye on America” to Sports and which got more airtime on news to tabloid TV to paid political the often lightweight, even gossamer NBC News than any other story in ads, free political time, and even the “Travels with Harry” on CBS (corre- 1996 (CBS’s biggest story was TWA late-night comedians, a favorite “news spondent Harry Smith visits the stars Flight 800 and ABC’s was the Dole source” for a reported one-third of tele- of girls’ basketball) and “Person of the campaign, which included the entire vision-watchers under thirty, according Week” (people who have made positive primary season; see box). At the same to the Freedom Forum’s Media Studies social contributions) on ABC. time, NBC’s attention to such hard- Center. “This is a fact of life ” says But these days, all three networks news topics as the presidential cam- ABC’s Jennings. “I don’t know hhw any are paying as much attention to health paign and the Middle Eastern peace evening news broadcast could now cast problems as any scriptwriter for E.R. process was drastically lower than its itself in such a way as to suddenly During just the first two and a half competitors’. Command the attention of vastly months of 1997 a steady channel surf- And NBC has figured out the plea- greater numbers of people.” er through the three broadcasts would sures and profits of packaging. Tyndall

75 2 4* COVERING NEWS calculates that during the first two neighborhood crime, motivate children an important and popular part of and a half months of 1997, NRC gave to learn, reduce accidents among teen- ‘American Agenda.” “I think we’re pay over a total of 351 minutes of its age drivers. ing a little price because of what it*, weeknight broadcasts to named fea- “Solutions” has come in for its share called,” he says. The segment on snor. ture segments, compared with 197 of criticism, too. After the segment ing “would have been tine if it had minutes on CBS and 185 on ABC. On looked at cures for snoring, the Wall been on Your Health.’ It’s a national any given evening as much as a third Street Journal television critic, Dorothy problem and a thing we spend money or more of the twenty-two-minute Rabinowitz, wrote savagely of a broad- on, and if we’d done it on Your news hole might be devoted to such _ Health’-well, Dorothy would segments. Some of the features were just have waited for another shorter specials like “Sleepless in Nielsen’s Numbers: one,” Jennings continues, America,” “Starting Over” (on keeping How the Three Network Evening laughing. New Year’s resolutions), ‘The Plane “Our critics just don’t like Truth” (airline safety), or “Going Newscasts Have Scored with it because it’s deemed to be Home” (NRC newspeople return to U.S. Audiences, 1971-1996 pandering,” he says. ‘But we their roots); others were established -.__- .__ we.-....-- -...~ -___ get more response to ‘Solu- regulars like “In Their Own Words n Share tions’ on the Internet than “In Depth,” “The Family,” ‘The Fleed------.--.--- - .- . . . ..-- ..,..., .,,. anything else we’ve ever ing of America” (governmental and in- 30% done.” stitutional corruption and waste) ‘The CBS’s Evening News, mean- American Dream,” and “N&man while, after dominating the Schwarzkopf’s America.” 25 airwaves for years as the newscast of the “Tiffany” network, slid into third place in 20 11 this translates into a “pot- the ratings after Larry Tisch’s pourri,” as Brokaw would cost-cutting years of the late have it, a “rich mix of differ- 15 ’80s. Ratings don’t always tell ent kinds of stories.” It’s a the whole story, of course. Amix, anyway. In the first months of Some of NBC Nightly News’s 1997 NBC’s “In Depth” segment, which 10 current strength may be at- usually runs some three or four min- tributable to “bounce” from the network’s other suc- utes, examined everything from find- 5 ing jobs for welfare recipients to the cesses-the thriving thrice- aging process. Under the other labels weekly newsmagazine Date- came a jumble of the informative, the line, the slick new cable-and- you-focused, and the fluffy: reports on online partner MSNBC, and :I the hot prime-time schedule. the meaning of daydreams, the gene- L And CBS is quick to point out alogy craze, absent fathers, oversupply Audience share, shown above, measures rip-offs at the Pentagon, no-fault di- that some of its newscast’s the percentage of the households actua//y present weakness derives vorce, Debbie Reynolds’s comeback watching television that was tuned to each getting out of debt, managing one’; from intra-network “splat”: program. Ratings, listed below, take potential CBS traded twenty-six aEli- time, overcoming the fear of flying, viewers into account, showing the percentage coarse behavior among athletes, senior ated stations with other net- of all households with television tuned to works citizens on stage in Las Vegas and each program. Years run from September after losing the how life has changed for worn& in to April. In ‘95’96 a single ratings point broadcast rights to pro foot- Yankton, South Dakota (pop. 12,703), represented 959,000 U.S. households. ball, oRen ending up with where Brokaw grew up. weaker partner stations. Dan Rather maintains Rating that it’s a “miracle” the Eve- I I ning News” is doing as well he other networks have made ABC 9.6 ii.1 9.9 12.6 11.1 10.7 a0 11.3 6.6 1 as it is in the face of the network’s crumbled delivery sys- changes that are similar NBCCBS 12.914.7 iti.14.4 15.113.6 15.4 13.8 l2.l 10.1 9.8 7.2 j though somewhat smaller. d tem. “Because we have a its own ratings trembled, ARC 13.2 12 l2.l 9.9 9.4 8.1 [ reputation for being a hard- Tadded a three-times-weekly “Solu- news outfit, we manage to tions” segment in place of the eight- stay in the hunt,” he says. “I year-old “American Agenda,” which believe if we go the soft-news had explored a wide range of issues in route we fall farther behind. health, education, religion, and the en- L I don’t hear anybody among vironment. The new feature, intro- our viewers complaining that duced last September, also falls cast “that has begun confusing itself we run too much foreign heavily into the utilitarian mold. It has with a social agency whose mission it news. I do find viewers complaining focused on successful efforts around is to advise citizens on all manner of when we run something they feel is a the country, many of them small in personal concerns.” Wade Of their tim-like a soR feature.” scale and private or local in scope, to Jennings maintains that “Solutions” CBS’s lineup does indeed include address common problems and pre- marks no radical departure for the noticeably more international stories dicaments of daily life: how to cure broadcast; it’s simply a way to empha- than the other two newscasts. Last chronic pain, find good day care, cut size a feature that had already been year the Evening News spent more

76 12. “You News” time than either competitor on both what’s significant, and to make that Among Newsweek’s top ten covers only Bosnia and the Middle Eastern con- interesting.” number nine, on the crash of TWA flict. It has aired a series of pieces by But that, says Brokaw, is exactly Flight 800, was pegged to a breaking Sob Simon on the adjustments to black what’s changed-the sense of what’s news story. Other top sellers featured rule in South Africa, and no other net- really important to people-and a John F. Kennedy’s new wife (“Carolyn work had a correspondent filing re- broadcast that doesn’t notice isn’t go- Style’?, gay parenting, the cartoon ports from Albania weeks before the ing to last long. “One of the things that character Dilbert on why ‘Work is country imploded in mid-March. But I want not to happen is for us to all Hell,” and ‘The Biology of Beauty” CBS, too, airs such small-focus fea- commit suicideP he says. Everything So, the argument goes, why should tures as “The Class of 2000” on teen- from education to the automobile busi- the newscasts be exempt from reori- agers’ lives, and it has certainly done ness has also been changing, and “they enting themselves as best they can, im bit for the New England Journal of could have been rigid and said ‘I don’t too? Why should the public require Medicine.

s the newscasts continue to warm up and soften up, it’s easy to romanticize the golden age when television news Adid, supposedly, have a soul. It’s never been entirely, unrelentingly devoted to “hard” news: on a single randomly se- lected evening in 1971, CBS gave five minutes to Charles Kuralt’s visit to a rally of An-stream-trailer fanciers and NBC’s David Brinkley bade a leisurely welcome to spring.

nd sometimes the evening news mistook ponderousness for heft. There was that hot night in August 1977 when AABC and NBC led their broadcasts with the death of Elvis Presley and the Tiffany network began with six minutes on an event it considered more MOFFETI CECIL newsworthy: negotiations over the Panama Canal Treaty. “A lot of the foreign coverage ten years ago was want to be demeaning to the institu- this one medium to be stuck with play- deathly dull,” says Tyndall. “A lot of tion,’ and they’d have gotten left being Norma Desmond when everyone the vaunted foreign news coverage hind.” else gets to be Madonna? that NBC is not now doing used to be Brokaw could have added the rest One reason is precisely that: every- Marvin Kalb reading a press release of the press to his list of evolving in- one else is doing it. If the goal is really from the secretary of state.” stitutions, too, as it grapples with the to give people news they haven’t al- glut of information and what surveys ready heard, it’s hard to believe that But critics point to other artifacts suggest is an unshakable resistance without NBC on the case, viewers of the golden age that now seem just among most of the audience to serious, would never find out that families as quaint as an An-stream. “In the “hard” news. The print press, long work better if Dad’s around or that not good old days you never even raised since displaced as the medium of first getting a good night’s sleep can be bad the issue of cost,” says Marty Koughan resort by the evening newscasts and for your health. The more any broad- a sixteen-year veteran of CBS New; more recently by the omnipresent cast strives to be “not your father’s who is now the executive producer for CNN and C-SPAN, has for years been evening news,” the more indistinguish- Mother Jones Television, “and if you adapting by substituting service sto- able it is from the “everything else” raised the question of ratings you were ries, life-style features, and analysis that is its most feared competition- mocked. At CBS Reports I worked on for the urgent scoop. The “newspaper the local television news, the tabloid an hour on litigation in America-just of record,” The New York Times, now shows and newsmagazines, the slick try that today” puts on its front page leisurely stories print magazines, Oprah, even the late- Sandy Socolow remembers when a about the plight of bored wealthy Rus- night comedians. sort of intellectual elitism was consid- sian wives or the overelaborate caution Yet there’s a larger question at ered not just normal among newspeo- labels on, for instance, children’s Bat- stake here, too, one that goes well be- pie, but healthy. “The mandate used to man capes. The muckraking bimonthly yond any critique rooted in Tyndall’s be to tell people what they needed to Mother Jones recently started a health numbers of minutes devoted to this or know-but they often don’t know what column. And the best-selling issue on that. It’s a question of the mood, the theY need to know until someone tells domestic newsstands for both Time tone, the underlying message of the them,” he says. “The newsperson’s job and Newsweek in 1996 was devoted to stories that do make air-and of the is to hunch out what’s important, new interpretations of the life of Jesus. ones that don’t. How long can an eve-