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TV News:'Fun to Watch' in Fact, Making Them Look Very Bad

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TV News:'Fun to Watch' in Fact, Making Them Look Very Bad PageS statistics of completions, incompletions and inter- ceptions. They do not say the Kansas City Chiefs' offensive line is outplaying the famous Vikings' Front Four— TV news:'fun to watch' in fact, making them look very bad. They give us quantitative statistics and, along with what we THOMAS SHALES can see with our own eyes, we figure out that the Chiefs' offensive line is outplaying the Viking's Front Four. In some ways, the better television news gets, grimness, and if you hit em too hard with massacres the worse television news gets. And be warned, it and defeats and bloodshed, well, they just might The point is that quantitative analysis is "objec- is getting better all the time. Better in that slick, turn to another channel for something more con- tive. " Qualitative analysis is editorial. By relying cool, calculating style it has. Like guns are get- soling. This operative dogma in the ol' TV news on objective quantitative analysis to tell us who ting better, bombs are getting better, and now game. That, alas, is show biz. is doing good and bad, the sports announcers feel there's even a teargas that handily sears your skin Call a TV newsman a showman and he inflates free to indulge in all sorts of fatuous remarks to the off, too. into a huff; remember the big deal CBS made about effect that "both teams are playing extremely well" What television may have in common with tear- separating news from entertainment in the Emmy and 'you can't take anything away from the Vikings," gas is that both are media with which to suppress awards? On the air, the distinction is barely evident. although the Vikings are looking terrible. the fleetingly or lastingly unpopular. And people The TV News Show is designed to be a pleasant, ,It occurs to us that the television networks could who go around saying, 'Most of television is junk, comforting, non-upsetting good-fun routine. A apply the same technique to political commentary but they do a good job with news,' are either Chicago TV station, in fact, brags in promos that in order to meet the criticisms of Vice President naive or television newsmen themselves. What its nightly newscast is "fun to watch, " and a DC Spiro T. Agnew and all the other advocates of television news is getting better-all-the-time at is area radio station says that its approach to news 1 "Objectivity. " being a better show, nothing more; and the better "sounds like fun —and it is. " You wonder how show it is, the less it cares about truth. much fun they made out of My Lai and Mary Jo The idea will require much research and refine- You can start any assault on television news with Kopechne. ment, but it just might work. Let us say that the an elemental point. The purpose of a TV news But entertainment doesn't have to be cheerful; President makes a major television speech to the show is the same as the the purpose of anything else people like pathos, too. They just gotta have shots nation. How would the networks analyze it? on commercial airwaves: Commercials. To sell, of Marines helping little South Vietnam orphans, The play-by-play man would simply recapitulate not to inform or enlighten or, least of all and hea- doctoring them up with bandages and playing Great the speech point by point in an excited voice using ven forbid, disturb. The American people must White Brother. TV news has a knee-jerk knack instant replays for the really crucial points. not be disturbed. The Silent Majority doesn't like for cheap melodrama. Recently, we got film of Then the color man, replying on the stax man, noise. If upset, it might even stop buying deodor- a sweet American housewife opening a letter from would tell us that the president said "let me make ant. her husband, captured by the Vietcong, whom she this crystal clear" four times—1. 6 times oftener TV newsmen will deny these charges of inten- hadn't heard from for over a year. A good scene; than his season average. Instant replays might be tional diffidence desperately; they will say that she opens the letter, reads it aloud, weeps on cue, used again to let the viewer judge just how clear never in their long history with the medium has and the camera grabs a shot of her blank-eyed kid- the president made things in each case. any executive ever told them what to say or what dies wondering whatever awful is happening to not to say on the air and blah, blah, blah, blah. daddy. It gives you pause, in this way: that poor Quantitative comparisons also could be used to That may be. But walk into a TV station some- woman hadn't heard from her husband for months, cover how many times the President used "passive" time and just feel the rampant, enforced isolation. but when she does get a letter, she waits until TV or "aggressive" phrases in a speech in Vietnam; It's eerie. And it represents and embodies the newsmen have set up cameras, lights and sound how many times he agreed with attorney general enormous gap between what's really happening equipment in her living room before she opens it. John N. Mitchell vs. HEW Secretary Robert H. out there and what finds its gray way to our tubes. A true American. F Finch on a domestic issue; or, for that matter, how (In fairness to her, it could have happened an- As a result, just one result, of this pervasive many times a Democratic speaker in his urgency to other way. Perhaps the TV newsmen found out video miasma, which eventually infects virtually disagree with the President also managed to disagree about the letter after she'd opened it, asked her with a majority in the latest Gallup Poll. all those who work in, or rather for, the medium 1 to seal it up again and do the scene for them that As we said, the technique will require refinement. ("You can't say that on television. "), Vietnam is way). But if the stax men do their job, the color men— television's war in more ways than one. It is not There are so many other corrupt reflexes affecting just the war most subjected to TV scrutiny; it is Eric Sevareid, David Brinkley, Howard K. Smith what local and national TV news telli us... The the war that television could have stopped. et al — won't have to do anything more daring Father Figure syndrome, finding someone soothing "We can't give too much time to Vietnam, " a than make a general assessment of the President's and paternal to tell us about Armageddon, so it local TV news director told me. He said that his field position and momentum. won't spoil our dinner. Shazam—Walter Cronkite.' station tried to limit Vietman news to about 3 The Cheerful Endings, adopting Time-style to (Richmond Times Dispatch) minutes, because viewers can take just so much the airwaves, so that even the most disastrous news sounds encouraging and hopeful, sometimes by countering a dis-heartening prognosis with the al- ternate viewpoint—and there always is an alterna- LARRY'S CUSTOM tive viewpoint ("but another doctor said emphati- cally today that no causal relationship between cigarettes and lung cancer has yet been. ")Or PICTURE FRAMING just simple o-my-gollies: "Yes, the world is plum- meting toward the sun, ladies and gentlemen, but 325 SEVENTH ST..S .E. inside sources say there still may be a chance of (on Market Row. next to the Post Office) averting catastrophe. One way or another, it was a good earth while it lasted. Good night, David. " GRAPHICS PR INTS ACCESSORIES Some say, in its defense, that TV news only has room for the Significant Stuff. Big fat, trend- «Kaiko Moti • Vanity Fair • Picture lights indicating news. Indeed, there is a mania for •Larry Zox • Wire • Sporting scenes attaching Larger Significance to virtually anything, •Leonard Baskin • Race track • Hangers and the significance is usually more hopeful moraliz- •Colescott •Flowers • Fast frames ing to keep the guy in the easy chair warm and •Tonero •Fruit • Braquettes comfy—if he's at the window watching for the •Lars Bo ^Clipper ships • Glass gremlins, he'll miss "If she kissed you once, will • Kamura •Non-glare glass she kiss you again?" •Shirley Cleary •Mirrors But the real criterion for news getting to TV is popularity. TV wants only the crowd-pleasers. • Louise August • QUICK FRAMING SERVICE News about the military dictatorship in Greece is • Gina Boulonger • DRY MOUNTING (POSTERS) not popular; there's not much you can do to show- •DIPLOMAS FRAMED (GROUP DISCOUNTS) biz it up, either. News about drug-crazed hippies r on murder sprees is very popular, oh very, but news about corruption in the South Vietnam government— too depressing.' Besides, USIS brass in Saigon have been known to frown on correspondents there who 10-6 p.m ., Sun. 12- 5 543-3680 dwell on the seamy. And gee, there's so much (Please turn to page 7) LICENSED TO UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED Page 4 Local TV: the color is conglomerate "Who controls what you view in D. C. ? • The 20th largest corporation in the U. S. • Two major newspapers with 78% of the local daily circulation, • A media conglomerate whose holdings include broadcast- ing stations in New York and Los Angeles, the transit advertising busi- ness in ten major cities, 29, 000 billboards, a direct mail outfit and the Ice Capades.
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