In the mid to late 1970s, a lot of college students were majoring in journalism. The reason for the sudden interest: Watergate. The bottom line about the scandal that brought down a sitting President was good old-fashioned reporting (and a mysterious unnamed government official who called himself Deep Throat, a wink to the equally popular X-rated flick seen by everyone in those daze). The two Washington Post investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were hailed as heroes and thrust into national fame with their superb reporting, retold in their best-selling book All the President’s Men, which Hollywood turned quickly into a major movie starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford.
See, the real lesson about Watergate (that involved a U.S. President who wanted to stay in power no matter what) was that the American press proved its relevance as government watchdog. Back then everyone read newspapers and watched the three network TV news—and the number one story was Watergate. The scandal, reported accurately and thoroughly by the Post reporters, culminated in televised day-long federal hearings that everyone watched, ad nauseum, for two long years.
But the reporters got the story right, following Deep Throat’s advice while pursuing the complex leads in their DC investigation: follow the money.
That was newspapers’ last heyday. Young people in particular, prone to idealism especially in those years, were positively influenced by journalism and the mass media. Many pursued careers in these fields because they wanted to make a difference.
After all, journalism is the search for truth.
The news blues
Somewhere during the 1980s, however, the public’s perception of reporters changed—permanently and for the worse. One, elected officials openly countered reporters’ articles and their interview questions. Americans saw this hostility, whether or not deserved by journalists, more and more on television. A decade or so later, the mass media ballooned into cable networks which brought us CNN and the 24-hour news cycle.
But in the 1980s something else was going on. The public was infatuated with tabloid news—and it wasn’t just available at the check-out stands. There were daily TV shows like Hard Copy. The more scandalous and titillating the story, the bigger it played on TV.
Also, the 1980s’ recession directly impacted the newspaper industry. Once upon a time in this country, major cities had two or more daily newspapers with hundreds of reporters and staff each. A decade later, most cities had only one daily newspaper (and more often than not, the ‘conservative’ editorial content paper won over the ‘liberal’ competitor). With TV news, something you could listen to while doing other stuff, newspapers were losing their audience and with them advertisers. Advertisers were calling the shots along political, religious and cultural lines, preferring more conservative news (meaning no stories in print about gay marriage, single mothers, divorce, couples living together, teens having sex and babies, drug use, alternative lifestyles and thinking such as swingers and atheism, and heavy metal and punk rock).
Finally, the internet came along, perceived as the most wonderful thing in the world. All newspapers converted to digital format yet not near as quickly as they should have. Subscribers, viewers and advertisers continued to dwindle. Newspaper reporters, mostly seasoned professional deadline writers, had to start video recording interviews, like their competing broadcast journalists on TV and radio.
Still going strong, the 24-hour news cycle is still presented as five minutes of news every 30 minutes and then ‘news analysis’ by reporters, talking heads and experts dwelling on the political implications of the news, slicing and dicing a story to explore every angle, going on and on about the same subject for literally years.
Journalists who report on government affairs should never be placed in the position of commentary.
That, mixed with tabloid ‘news,’ has made the public not trust journalists at all, if the public ever did to begin with. They think tabloid reporters are like other journalists or vice versa. As Americans have sat and watched more ‘news,’ what they’ve heard is mostly opinion, political and social views that are conservative or liberal and rarely rational sans party line.
Enter bloggers, podcasts, late-night comedy shows highlighting news events while curious viewers do a quickie internet check on names and such—all competing with the once great newspaper institutions now barely dailies anymore—and what our society has had a hand in creating is … questionable journalism. Maybe even junk journalism. Consumers and fans enjoy this 21st century loose style of reporting the news, many no doubt never thinking to cross reference the news bits in greater detail by reading lengthy articles in digital and print just to be certain that the news-entertainment biz got the stories straight.
Guess there’s nothing more to say other than “Goodbye journalism and journalists” as us older folks once new it. Let the ‘citizen journalists’ present news tinged with gossip, a little truth and a lot of embellishment. As long as this is the new journalism, reporters and citizens alike, each on our own time and by our own volition, must ensure the following criteria to guard against fake news: Who, What, When, Where, Why & How plus substantiated facts from three or more separate and named sources and all sides of controversial issues. Oh, and we’re all gonna need to make sure news reports are balanced and free of verbiage that leads to a conservative or liberal bias. Whew! Lotta work goes into being a real-deal news reporter. Who knew?