As an entertainment writer, I understand the necessity of capturing and retaining the audience’s attention. Every medium of communication, inluding books, movies, magazines, theater, television, etc. must engage the viewers to be successful. So when network news packages the war with Iraq as a chess game of ratings where rich graphics and high-tech communication are used to check-mate one other, should it be acceptable? Do the same rules of competitive marketing that apply to American Idol and the Thursday night line-up ethically translate into the coverage of Freedom Iraq?
One can’t change the nature of the beast; NBC, CBS, FOX and ABC are with us today because of their marketing teams’ uncanny ability to sell the station. Nonetheless, turning war into a commercial for self-promotion is not just morally unsound; it is unprofessional.
Turn on any of these stations or go to their Web sites and the “shock and awe” computer graphics, instantaneous stats and updates are all prefaced with a similar slogan. “Reporters in the field. Experts at Home. The power of NBC news,” “When It Matters Most, turn to ABC News,” “Get the News You Need From the Reporters You Trust, Sign up to be a Fox Fan,” “Be the First to Know, Breaking News Alerts, CBS.” With a sensational war upstaging prime time, everything from appealing to our sense of security to making viewers feel a step ahead of the rest is used to sway the audience’s attention.
Networks would have viewers believe Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Bill O’Reilly personally are doing everything they can in the name of freedom to bring us straight to the war front. Panels of retired generals and military experts, 24-hour videophones, 3D images of A-10s, B-52s and Apache helicopters are provided because of the patriotic devotion network TV has for its viewers. The glamorization of mankind’s worst hours through glossy segments of undulating red, white and blue proudly branded with the station’s logo frankly is embarrassing.
All the same, I have no intention of disrespecting the correspondents on the battlefield; I admire them. They are doing the real job of a journalist without makeup or a desk. The war correspondent’s role is respectable and brave. When moneymakers turn their hardship into another chance to move a chess piece, they lose credit in the news world and the correspondent’s efforts are in vain.
War is not an opportunity for self-gain. A news station’s only job is to say what it knows in the most unbiased way possible. I revert back to MC 2010; go through the criteria of a good news story: slant, completeness, sources, timeliness and relevance … then move on.
It’s hard to take news seriously when it is interrupted with ads for Fear Factor and Ms. USA. Maybe network television is no longer a medium to rely on for hard news. But what can stations really do? The pressure to be a spectacle has to be obeyed to survive. Not to mention every other public entertainment event from concerts to Oscars cashes in on the high profile of this war. Distraction isn’t a bad thing in moderation, and maybe that’s all we can expect from television. Because certainly in the past few months, serious journalism has turned into the icon worship of peacocks.