How Low Can TV News Go

I am struck each day by the continuing dissolution of the TV news industry.  I understand that mine is the last generation that will read a daily newspaper; something I still enjoy.  I guess you can say I am in the bridge generation because I used to enjoy watching the news on television as well.  As with most people nowadays, I do get most of my news over the internet, especially sports news.  As newspapers die, the sports section seems to be one of the first appendages to go.  In the face of the internet onslaught television news, for me, is approaching the ludicrous.  We are in the midst of an actual shooting war, with Americans dying almost every day and a very serious economic crisis.  Despite this, the lead story was about the freedom of a potential murderer in Italy, with breathless narration of her flight back to the U.S.  Television news has evolved into a personality business.  Watch the news and note how much of the content is “analysis” which is, in fact, thinly disguised “opinion”.  All the reporters and the anchors are struggling to package the news to make it memorable – even if the base story is not newsworthy.  They are clearly in the entertainment business.  I miss the days when editors actually exercised some control over the on air “talent” and when there was a clear line between editorial opinion and actual facts.  Instead of a thoughtful presentation of the facts we get a rushed package of sound bytes.  One of my favorite fables is the one where several blind men touch different parts of an elephant and then describe it based on the part they are touching.  Reporters rush to get someone to say something memorable for their newscast – even if that someone is a complete “idiot”.  The only medium that allows for a true examination of the facts is the written word.  Maybe there is hope in the internet with its written content and maybe that is why television news continues to descend into irrelevance.  Newspapers are not really dying – they are transitioning into the electro-magnetic spectrum of the internet.