Deadspin explains:
Earlier this month, CNN’s Brian Stelter broke the news that Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner or operator of nearly 200 television stations in the U.S., would be forcing its news anchors to record a promo about “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” The script, which parrots Donald Trump’s oft-declarations of developments negative to his presidency as “fake news,” brought upheaval to newsrooms already dismayed with Sinclair’s consistent interference to bring right-wing propaganda to local television broadcasts.The problem, though, isn't Sinclair-owned stations. The problem is this: TV news, for the most part, isn't news.
I spent part of my career in a combine TV-print newsroom, so I've produced my share of packages and short readers. The station I worked for was an exception to this rule — which, I suspect, is part of why that station no longer has a newscast.
They say politics is show business for ugly people. Well: TV news is show business for pretty people who can't act or sing.
How you can tell this is true at the national level: If cable news was news, you'd see a lot more taped pieces telling stories and explaining stories than you do. Instead, what you get is panel after panel debating the headlines and screaming about them. Check out this NYTMag story from last year for a detailed look at how making CNN isn't really any different from producing sports - which is entertainment - or, ahem, "The Apprentice."
It's different at the local level, but there's still a problem. It's long been understood that TV news focuses on crime and disaster to the exclusion of other types of news stories — "if it bleeds it leads" — and thus presents its audience with a distorted view of their communities. And they do it because it's easy:
Violent crimes such as murders, robberies, and rapes are newsworthy because of identifiable elements. These elements are ideal for the art of story telling: definable events between individuals are concrete rather than abstract; dramatic, conflict-filled and intense stories are seen as interesting; crime is seen as disrupting order and threatening the community; TV news emphasizes short, simple and verifiable stories; and crime is visual and may be easily videotaped.Newspapers cover crime, too. But they also cover City Hall and the Planning Commission and those stories that require some level of expertise to tell and explain — stuff that's important to the community but lacking the show-biz drama or surveillance video of a robbery.
The recent assent of Sinclair changes the dynamic: Now local news doesn't even matter at a number of local stations. They're being Fox News-ified, turned into right-wing propaganda mills. That's ... not local news.
There are exceptions to all of this, of course. And when news is breaking - the kind of stuff that has good video - TV news is a good place to in the first formative moments.
After that? There's a reason Dan Rather explained a complicated story by asking viewers to read a newspaper the next day. The problem? They probably didn't. We're a nation of people who think they're in the know, but aren't. TV news is part of the problem.
