Since we discuss the state of the media (specific to issues on U-O) on various threads.... this might be a good place to have a more general discussion.  This is a good piece by former ABC anchor and correspondent Ted Koppel....so let's get started.

 

Ted Koppel:

Olbermann, O'Reilly and the death of real news

By Ted Koppel

Sunday, November 14, 2010;

The Washington Post

 

To witness Keith Olbermann - the most opinionated among MSNBC's left-leaning, Fox-baiting, money-generating hosts - suspended even briefly last week for making financial contributions to Democratic political candidates seemed like a whimsical, arcane holdover from a long-gone era of television journalism, when the networks considered the collection and dissemination of substantive and unbiased news to be a public trust.

 

Back then, a policy against political contributions would have aimed to avoid even the appearance of partisanship. But today, when Olbermann draws more than 1 million like-minded viewers to his program every night precisely because he is avowedly, unabashedly and monotonously partisan, it is not clear what misdemeanor his donations constituted. Consistency?

 

We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable.

 

Full op-ed http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111202857.html

Having spent 22 years in TV news (ending in June 2000), I can say one major reason local TV and radio news has gotten so awful is..

 

1. Because the broadcast industry was deregulated: allowing mega-media conglomerates to be created, such as Fox, Clear-Channel, Sinclair, Media General and others.

 

2. The emasculating of the Federal Communications Commission: which has become little more than a regulatory lap-dog for the industry.... issuing fines for some DJ who utters an obscenity, but doing nothing about TV and radio stations who do little actual journalism or public affairs programming.

 

To be sure, broadcasting was always a business, but a broadcast license carried with it the public obligation to serve the information needs of the community each station served.  That is much less of an obligation today.  News is now a "profit center" and stations are falling over themselves to program more and more time for news....but filling that air-time with little more than fluff and "news you can use".  It's all about telling people what they think you want to hear, instead of telling us what we need to know.... good or bad.

 

News has become all about the "botom line" and little more. Experienced reporters and others are pushed out the door in favor of younger, cheaper "talent" that can't speak in complete sentences... and newscasts are filled with "breaking news" that has no meaning to the audience at large.

 

I honestly think it will take re-regulating the broadcast & cable industry to turn this around. 

Been there, done that.... hated it.  Nothing more than showing great insight into the obvious. 

It used to be the community as a whole, but I doubt that even enters into the editorial decision any more, or (if it does at all) only in superficial ways.

 

These days, the audience seems to be a moving target.

If only the crappy Cincinnati Enquirer would follow suit, the loss of their negative city reporting would be a net gain for the the rest of the region (although I would hate to see downtown lose jobs, but that would probably be their own lead story on the move).  Let them serve whom they are best at slurping all over (West Chester and Mason)!

 

 

Atlanta Daily Moves to Suburbs

'Burbs or bust

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has left Atlanta – literally and figuratively – in its quest for suburban readers

by Scott Henry 18 November 2010 - 1:00pm

Metropolitan Atlanta's main daily newspaper has pinned its hopes for survival on suburbia, decamping from downtown to the city's northern suburbs and in the process shedding its urban identity.

 

After years of declining circulation, the Atlanta metropolitan area's main newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has not only moved to suburban Dunwoody but sought to focus its coverage on the northern suburbs, deemphasizing not only the city of Atlanta but southside suburbs as well. Reporters are now discouraged from using the term "sprawl" because such language might seem to pass judgment on the suburban way of life.

 

http://clatl.com/gyrobase/burbs-or-bust-the-ajc-has-left-atlanta/Content?oid=2364218&storyPage=1

That's absolutely pitiful and the enquirer does need to cease operations or move out of the city as well. I definately agree with that. Ohio's best newspapers IMO are the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch, Akron Beacon Journal and the Toledo Blade. The Dayton Daily News is a shell of what it used to be unfortunately. Local tv news around the country is a joke. National news is too biased especially with MSNBC and the Fox ultra conservatives. The other channels are just ok i guess. Newspapers are the best source of news for local, national and international news by far still along with NPR and some magazines.