Cultural Differences

This post is about the difference between us and them.  Here in the United States, we have certain values and standards that generally apply across the populace.  You know what they are because you’re part of this culture.  Of course, these days, we are undergoing a cultural deregulation, which means that a lot of things that used to be offensive are now passively accepted.  Lest they be accused of being a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal, people have become accustomed to simply observing something that used to be considered offensive, quietly commenting to themselves and moving on.  That’s how civilized people do it.

Suit yourself, but the entire world does not view things in the same manner that we do.  One of the great mistakes that Americans make when they are overseas is the assumption that everybody in the world enjoys the same cultural enlightenment that we do.  And that the whole world enjoys the same court system and civil liberties that we do.  Needless to say, this is not the case.  For a harrowing example, check out the movie Midnight Express.  In this movie, our innocent American is caught at the airport with two bricks of Turkish hashish strapped to his body (which tells you how long ago this movie was made).  From there, it’s a long rumbling slide into hell.  And, this during a time when Turkey was a solid ally of the United States.  One can only imagine what it is like now.

Actually, one can imagine how things are now, what with the cultural changes taking place in the Middle East.  Surely, you can remember back to 1994 when the big uproar was devoted to Michael P. Fay, an American citizen who was convicted of theft and vandalism in a Singapore court.  He was sentenced to punishment by caning and the civilized West went berserk over the event.  It is helpful to remember that while we don’t do that sort of stuff here, that doesn’t mean that nobody does it.  My feeling then, and now, is that when you’re in a foreign country, you have to be sensitive to local mores.  It’s as much out of respect as self-preservation.  People forget about this stuff periodically, at their own risk.  And, you have to wonder what the liberal reaction will be when Sharia shows up in force in our society.  As it already has in France.

What has motivated me to write is an event that took place earlier this month in Cairo.  A female reporter for a large news gathering organization was sexually attacked by a mob of men that had gathered during the civil unrest that led to Hosni Mubarak’s departure from the presidency.  I’m not going to mention her name, but I am going to mention some of the odd circumstances of the reporting of this event.  Most notable is the fact that the reports of this event on different websites  all seem to include this statement: Comments on this item have been closed.

That font of liberal knowledge, National Public Radio, has this item: Why Have Many Comments About The Attack On ********** Been Removed? The fact that NPR has been removing some comments seems to be in keeping with their general outlook; just ask Juan Williams about that.  At least NPR is upfront about it now.

Of course, reading comments about any online article can be a depressing affair.  Simple articles about the opening of Girl Scout cookie sales often receive numerous malicious comments that make you fear for the future of Western Civilization.  So, when something as volatile as this comes up, the comments can make you suicidal.  That said, this particular incident apparently has raised the hackles of many.  In one way, NPR got it right:

• There’s much we don’t know about what happened. Until we learn more, for example, jumping to conclusions about her attackers adds nothing to the discussion. They’re criminals. Period.

In another way, NPR showed their cultural bias:

• Blaming the victim is an old, tired game. Please don’t.

At some point along the way, people have got to take responsibility.  I’m not going to post a photograph, much in the same way that I’m not mentioning names, but you have to ask yourself one question.

Given that events in Egypt have been extremely volatile in recent weeks, as it now has become in the region.  Given that there are significant cultural differences between the West and the Middle East.  Given that within Egyptian society itself there are significant conflicts between those who wear Western attire and those who choose the hajib.  Given that not everybody likes westerners, their appearance, their culture.  Given that a lot of people don’t like reporters, regardless of cultural differences.

Given all that, why would a reporter show up at a site of political and cultural unrest wearing a string of clearly visible pearls?

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Shocked, Part II

Well, since I’ve got some intellectual momentum, let us revisit the issues in my previous blog about college cheating.  If there is any great public moral outrage about this story, it hasn’t reared its ugly little head yet.  Presumably, in a few weeks, a reporter will do a follow up story on the young man who claimed that everybody cheats in college.  One can only guess as to the character of that unreported story.  On the other hand, there has been online discussion about it.  Perhaps the most bothersome was this comment to one of the online articles about the event.

His views probably probably represent 80% of college students who are majoring in law, economics, business, accounting, medicine and the other disciplines where morality, ethics and integrity are not taught. He is your (and our) future.

And it is the “your future” part that is most disturbing, because the person who posted that comment is right.  What if we become a world where anything is possible because “everybody does it”.

Chris Matyszczyk, of Cnet.com, writes about the University of Central Florida cheating scandal.  In part his attitude about the matter comes from John 8:7, although he does not cite that passage:

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Taken out of context, those words would indicate that nobody should say anything  about anybody because we’re all sinners.  It may be true that all are sinners, but one of the major tenets of religion is an acknowledgment that we are sinners.  The idea is to try and do better.  Besides, if applied, the “we’re all sinners so we can’t judge others” would destroy our legal system, the mechanism which protects us from the predations of others.

There’s always an inclination to let things slide, and the phrase “everybody does it” is particularly insidious.  Especially since while everybody may be doing it, specific names of just “who” is doing it are rarely cited.  There’s just this nebulous mass of humanity out there doing it, and I want to get mine while I can.  This is the sort of stuff that you tried to feed your Mom in high school.  It didn’t work then, and it probably should not work now.

Humanity has a track record for letting things drift downward and then catching itself.  Inevitably, there are those who call for “new thinking” on a topic.  The old ideas are just that, old.  We need new stuff.  Consider this extension of that logic:

After extensive research, the staff of the School of Divinity have determined that the Ten Commandments should now be described as the Ten Recommended Practices.  To quote the school’s Dean, “This makes our coursework congruent with modern day realities.  It conveys the modern interpretation of God’s Will into the context of daily life.”

Of course, I’m just riffing here, but you can see the logical train of thought.  The seventh commandment (“You shall not commit adultery”) becomes RP 7 (“You shouldn’t sleep around”).  And, because we are a litigious society, the Ten Recommended Practices would be subject to extensive bureaucratic examination and clarification.  For example:

RP 7 (4)(c)(ii):  It may be possible to sleep with a person who is not your spouse / partner if you are at a convention more than 500 miles from your place of domicile and you have consumed four margaritas and three Cuervo shooters.

Certainly words for our modern times.

Matyszczyk ends his column with:

….there is an essay question: “Cheating in business is both natural and prevalent. Discuss.” You have three hours to answer that one.

Well, to start with, I have to admit that I have already cheated on this essay because I first saw this question three days ago, not three minutes ago.  Be that as it may, I feel that I am still entitled to complete the question and you’ll be hearing from my attorney if you object.  But, hey, that’s the current state of academia.

Moving along, there certainly is the popular conception that business people cheat and steal as a matter of course.  Just take a look at many movies produced by Hollywood.  It is almost always the big bad business people who are doing the cheating and stealing.  Of course, there is little discussion about Hollywood’s typical approach to motion picture accounting, although The Player comes disarmingly close.

With those examples extant, it is no wonder that some of our children draw the conclusion that “This is college, everybody cheats.”  Suit yourself, but I’ve got to believe that children can’t be left to their own devices in front of a television set.

The source of this conversation is a cheating scandal at a university in Florida, but it could just as easily be coming from almost any quarter of our society.  Yes, everybody might cheat, but there are penalties for doing so.  In part, this is a personal favorite of mine, the conservative tenet of taking responsibility for one’s actions.

An individual can cheat on their taxes.  And it is possible that they can get away with it, but if they get caught, the penalties are often substantial.  Needless to say, there are a lot of “ifs” and “ands” to that statement, especially if you have enough money to afford a very good lawyer.  What the government gets you on is false swearing, misrepresenting your financial transactions.  Cheating, if you will.  By cheating on the test, the business students were misrepresenting their knowledge of the subject matter, essentially a false swearing of fact.

The real issue is that we still consider cheating to be deviant behavior.  If we didn’t, one would think that there should be college courses in the art of cheating.  Actually, there are institutions that serve as teaching facilities for cheating; they’re called prisons.  Even if they’re the very nice penal facilities that allow you to improve your tennis game, they’re still jails.  And most who are residents of those facilities are guilty; many of those residents will also assure you that they are, in fact, innocent.

So, while  “Cheating in business is both natural and prevalent” in your mind, that doesn’t make it any more legal than it was a hundred years ago.  Hopefully, the same will be true in another hundred years.  In the greater sense, the University of Central Florida cheating scandal is a paradigm for what is going on in our society in general.

If someone doesn’t stand up and object to the cheating, regardless of their personal sins, it will only grow worse.  And, we are the poorer for that.

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Shocked, shocked!

Americans are an idealistic people.  We are corny enough to believe that our fellow citizens and our institutions should be honest.  So, at least some of us are upset to find that a massive cheating scandal has broken out at the University of Central Florida.  There it is, right there on the screen:

The gist of the story is that a college professor figured out that 200 of his 600 business major students had cheated on an examination.  Talk about doing a volume business….  And, this is a place where the examination room security supposedly rivals that of Las Vegas.

In my day in the ivied halls of the academe, the college I attended had an Honor System that apparently worked.  I was aware that other institutions of higher learning might or might not have such rules in place.  Well, presumably all institutions have such rules, it really is a matter of enforcement.

In any case, the ABC news story included a couple student interviews.  Disturbingly, “Opinions on campus are mixed…..”, but the real deal sealer for me was the statement from the individual below: “This is college, everyone cheats….”

I have obscured this student’s name, but it is clearly visible in the video.  To be sure, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of the media quoting things out of context, but this individual’s statement appears clear enough. Perhaps he needs to take a course in media management.

Interestingly, an individual with the same name living in the same area of Florida has a page on LinkedIn.  No doubt, this morning he is quietly enjoying a no-fat soy latte, blissfully unaware that people around the country are putting the electronic dots together.  No doubt, his current employer, a corporation which offers building security systems, is also blissfully unaware of what is happening.

The effects of cheating in the educational environment have a way of meandering into the real world.  And you don’t have to look very far for examples.  Consider this one which also appeared on page A3 of today’s Atlanta Journal Constitution.

• White House altered report justifying drilling ban.  Inspector general finds it was altered to imply it was peer reviewed

Of course, there are numerous other examples of cheating in our society, but having a casual attitude about truth and honesty is corrosive for our society.  We trust our elected officials to be honest, at least most of the time.  We trust business to be honest, too, yet it was a business course where the UCF scandal erupted.  If you can’t trust people, just what do you have left?

Yet, in all of this to-do about cheating, it was the reporter’s use of the word Shocked that teed me up:

And, as only Hollywoood can, the phrase has worked its way into daily life:

Shocked, indeed.

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WNEG TV – Ground Zero in the White Elephant Poop

Perhaps the most difficult thing for many institutions is reporting on themselves.  From corporation stock shareholder reports to investigative journalism, it’s often hard to speak honestly to the general public about what are often considered to be “internal events”.  If things are rosy, it is difficult to contain the resulting enthusiasm.  If the news is bleak, it becomes convenient to ignore or omit embarrassing details, and even to ignore the problem in its entirety.

This is a tale of WNEG-TV, currently of Athens, Georgia. For an overview, please see the Wikipedia article, here.   WNEG is in financial trouble and there hangs this blog item. Created as a place of learning in the University of Georgia Journalism School, the WNEG story may prove to be much more of a learning experience than the school’s administrators had counted on.

I first discovered WNEG’s problems on Doug Richards’ very interesting Live Apartment Fire blog, which covers media matters in the Atlanta market.  Richards had covered WNEG on prior occasions, but his most recent posting on the topic came after the Red & Black student newspaper broke the story that WNEG was blasting through its seed money.  The $5 million grant that it was given to begin operations was largely spent in 5 months.  That’s burn in anybody’s book.

The Timeline:

From an October, 2008 article on the Gainesville Times site: “WNEG went on the air in 1984 as an independent station owned by veteran Toccoa broadcaster Roy Gaines. It was affiliated with WNEG-AM 630, which is now under separate ownership.”

“In 1991, the TV station was acquired by Spartan Radiocasting Co., owner of CBS affiliate WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, S.C. When WAGA-TV in Atlanta became a Fox affiliate in 1994, it opened the door for WNEG to become a CBS affiliate for Northeast Georgia in 1995.”

“Spartan was acquired by Media General, a communications company based in Virginia. A year ago [2007; ed.], Media General announced it was exploring the sale of WNEG and other stations.”

So, the Grady School of Journalism picked up WNEG, presumably at the top of the market.  Everything was sunny and bright:

Open, exposed and high-tech indeed.  And, if things had stayed as good as earlier years, this would have been a brilliant idea.  Students would have the opportunity to learn:

Neonatal-newsgatherers

View from the control room

And, even early this year, things were still looking up:

UGA TV

But there was trouble on the horizon.  In October, 2009, the University of Georgia’s student newspaper, The Red & Black, ran an article.  In University-owned station WNEG finds trouble in the air, it was observed that:

Despite big plans for the future, construction delays and financial problems pushed back the opening of the studio and completely disrupted class plans for many Grady students.

By April, 2010, the Red & Black was back again with Pull WNEG’s plug:

The Red & Black editorial board believes to justify nearly $800,000 in staff salaries, WNEG has to produce content that equals that of other professional television stations.

And it doesn’t.

Businesses nationwide are constantly cutting costs and people, and the journalism industry is the poster child of reducing costs to survive. And that is exactly what WNEG needs to do.

Concurrent with the sale of WNEG-TV to the University of Georgia, a global financial crisis had developed.  Of course, these things aren’t announced in advance, and rarely is there a singular event that causes everybody to say “Ahhhh, a financial crisis”.  Instead, there is the slowly dawning realization that things aren’t quite working in the same way.

At about the same time as the Red & Black editorial, Doug Richards also picked up on the problem with WNEG.

From there, things have been moving at their own pace.

WNEG gets $340,000 reprieve from UGA research foundation

And:

Students can help save WNEG-TV

In particular, I found the “Students can help save…” article to be interesting because it articulates something which we used to hear from Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in old black and white movies:

What fine arts major hasn’t said to their friends, “Dude, we should totally make a TV show?”

In the barn.  While I admire the youthful enthusiasm and can-do attitude, one also has to acknowledge what appear to be the realities of the situation.  There are already thousands of outlets for youthful enthusiasm on the media scene today, many of them quite professional.  Just take a look at You Tube.  This is the same problem that WNEG faced originally, there are too many media outlets and the weaker ones are going to fall by the wayside.  Whether WNEG is one of these or not depends upon a meeting which will supposedly be held on September 23rd.  Again, the Gainesville Times:

“In September, we’ll be prepared to talk more specifics as we continue the evaluation of the various options with our consultant to figure out what best meets our needs,” said Tim Burgess, senior vice president for finance and administration. “It feels like we’re closing in on a best option. When you study hard, you get a better feel. A year ago, we weren’t studying it, we were implementing a business plan, but three or four months ago we began re-assessing that business plan.”

Whatever happens, it is an interesting situation.  It is not fair to expect that management would know that a financial crisis would develop as it did, but on the other hand, it is fair to expect them to acknowledge a problem and promptly address it.

At the same time, perhaps the students at WNEG are being given an opportunity to observe a news story on a first-hand basis.  How they report it may prove to be far more useful than classroom time listening to some lecturer running along about the ideal world.

Moreover, what shines here is the journalistic abilities of the Red & Black, which has been running stories about the WNEG mess for quite a while.  Nor is this just the Red & Black, print media in these parts has shown signs of life.  Consider the investigative reporting over the last year by the Atlanta Journal Constitution on:

• Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal.
• DeKalb County Public Schools bidding scandal.
• Political campaign reporting.
• MARTA budgetary spending.

And much, much more.  For a supposedly dead institution, the newspaper is looking remarkably life like.

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The Hemphill Memorial Service

Paul Hemphill’s memorial service was today at noon. It was a sweet and enjoyable tribute to his life and to his words. The room was wall-to-wall with literary talent, lots of ink stained wretches, but as one editorial type observed, “We clean up good.” And, interestingly, there were no television types there, which must say something.

Afterwards, lunch at Manuel’s Tavern and some enjoyable moments with someone whom I had corresponded with for many years but had not met in person.  And then , back to the real world, stuck in traffic on the Downtown Connector.

There’s something appropriate in the fact that Hemphill died around the baseball All-Star break.  Paul loved the game, unsuccessfully tried for a career in the game and followed it for years.  So, right in the middle of the baseball season, there is a game that really decides nothing, one that is played simply out of love for the game.  It’s a boys’ game played by men, and the All-Star game is just that, all stars, chosen by the fans.  Tomorrow, the competition begins again, but for the moment it is just the game.

Paul Hemphill led a full and interesting life.  Lucky us.

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Paul Hemphill, Writer

Photo courtesy http://www.paulhemphill.net/

Paul Hemphill has died at age 73.  He leaves behind family, friends and a prodigious body of the written word.

It is hard to understate the lasting legacy Paul Hemphill has given to writers yet unborn; whatever we write is built upon what has been written before.  Before you can write, you must read and you must experience.  And to be a successful Southern writer is an even greater achievement simply because the competition is so great.  The Southern writer is a captive of place and people and pain, yet from all that, Paul Hemphill did it all.  His was a clean and elegiac style, vividly remembering what had been.

There are countless stories about Mr. Hemphill, but his epiphany at Emile’s French Restaurant is perhaps the best.  It is far better recounted in his own essay “Quitting the Paper” from his 1981 book, “Too Old to Cry”.  Emile’s was a few blocks walk from the old Atlanta Journal building, around the corner from Herrin’s.  Hidden away on a narrow side street, Emile’s was a perfect place for the conspiratorial gin-fueled meeting which led to his departure from the Atlanta Journal.  It was there that reason and practicality were thrown to the wind and Paul Hemphill cut out on his own.  Emile’s is  long gone, but there should be a plaque on the wall for every writer that contemplates breaking free and going it alone.

Hemphill had set a grueling pace, writing daily columns for years.  The best description I have heard is that the newspaper is a monster that eats writers, and every day it takes another bite.  Of course, what was to happen next is uniquely Paul’s; sixteen books and thousands of newspaper columns and essays show that.

There is no adequate way to explain why people see and then try to put words to what has been.  There are insufficient words to explain the compulsion of writing, but proofs of the skill are self evident by what is put to paper.  With his words and his eye, Paul Hemphill supplied the seeds for future generations of those who aspire to write.  He showed them with his craft.

We are told to write what we know, so in that way, there can never be another Paul Hemphill.  Each generation of writers experience a different world, see different things.  What Hemphill’s generation wrote was often called “The New Journalism“, and it was a clear break from what had been written before.  There are those who consider Hunter S. Thompson to be the most flamboyant example, but those who say that never saw Paul Hemphill and Harry Crews in full sway at Manuel’s Tavern.  And, writing in that style was not necessarily limited to the the confines of the outrageous, George J. W. Goodman’s “The Money Game” is proof of that.

There have been those of the younger generation that drink and act like Hunter Thompson in the expectations that they will then write like Hunter Thompson, but it doesn’t work that way.  Each generation must find its own way of speaking.  Each generation must write through their own experiences.  Each generation builds on what has been written before.

Hemphill’s words were hard and gritty because his life had once been hard and gritty.  Hemphill wrote what he knew, and did it gorgeously.  We no longer have the benefit of his presence, but we have the lasting benefit of his words.  Paul Hemphill is now gone, but his words are still with us forever.

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The Digital Conversion

Well, here we are again; digital television is scheduled to become a reality. The first time around, we were told that people were unprepared and that the governmental funds for the converter boxes had been exhausted. So, it is now time for a second try, and this one looks like it will stick.

Certainly by Sunday, the conversion will be newsworthy material, with people saying on camera: “Why didn’t anybody tell me?” When you think about it, though, if they had actually been watching television over the last year, they would have known that this was coming, so you have to wonder just how legitimate their statement is.

The confusion can be legitimate, since my local cable provider has told me both that I have nothing to worry about, that they will handle everything and, at the same time, telling me that I need a cable box for each television to enjoy what television has to offer.

It seems that the more televisions I have, the less I enjoy the medium. And, will there be news coverage of people saying “Who cares about television, it’s all junk anyway.”?

We’ll see. Or we won’t.

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Pooled Television Cameras

3 Local TV Stations to Pool Resources

A little noticed media story appears to have slipped under the radar. Appearing on page A14 of the local Atlanta Journal Constitution for May 23, 2009, it was reported that Atlanta televisions stations WAGA, WXIA and WGCL had begun the practice of pooling television cameras at local news events.

If one were to try and sneak things by the viewing public, it couldn’t have been handled better. By appearing in the local newspaper (which is in a state of decline anyway), on the Saturday of a holiday weekend, buried back in the business section, this could easily qualify as an obscurity hat-trick.

Of course, costs are at the base of everything, especially these days, but television management does make a cogent point that there are just so many different camera angles. When six stations arrive at the scene of an event, there is just so much that can be done with the visual aspects of the story. Not to mention the fact that the crowding and jostling is undignified. On the other hand, this practice will be a departure from local style. Gaining its start in Philadelphia and other markets, this is presumably the way of the future.

They say that the gorilla is an endangered species. For many years, local vernacular for the television cameraman was “a gorilla“, because they had to be big strapping lads to carry the heavy cameras of that day. There was even a local affair called The Gorilla Ball, in which the various outtakes and mistakes of the on-air talent were paraded for the amusement of their fellow media mavens. What started out as the camera people gathering after hours for beer and jeering, finally blossomed into an official event, complete with black tie. Presumably, the gorilla term is no longer used since the arrival of the Betacam. At the same time, it appears that the cameraman’s role in the awards process is also being diminished.

Regardless, the pooled camera feed can be viewed in two ways. For the glass-is-half-empty crowd, this is just further proof that things are circling the drain. Given the general temper of the times, this is not an unreasonable assumption.

While there are those who view things as being in constant downward entropy, I prefer to view this as an interesting opportunity. Certainly, it is possible that two camera positions will be eliminated, but it could just as easily be viewed the other way. Instead of three cameras covering one event, you could have three cameras covering three events.

In a way, this is a refreshing departure from the zero-sum mentality of the past. The stringent economic times have made all of us look at the way that we live, the way that we do business. And out of this are coming some positive outcomes. Another television station down the street is not the enemy, the enemy is the computer screen, Nintendo and apathy.

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Is Television News Next?

Television is the box in which they buried vaudeville.

Even though I’m not old enough to remember vaudeville, I am old enough to remember the products of vaudeville. That is, the black and white television of the 1950’s. Certainly there were Ed Sullivan and Sid Caesar, but I especially remember the comedians such as Henny Youngman, to whom the above quote is often credited. There were Sheckys and Joeys, and there were smart funny women from that era such as Imogene Coca, Phyllis Diller and even a young woman named Joan Rivers, the poster girl for cosmetic surgery. They were all comedians who earned their chops on the Borscht Belt circuit in upper New York State. Television had renewed their careers as the Catskill Mountains resorts such as Grossinger’s faded into obscurity.

In the early 1950’s, television was a new toy, frisky as a colt and just as entertaining. A lot of television in that era was hopelessly square, because the audience itself was hopelessly square. And nobody took the medium all that seriously because the television was new and experimental. Television stations were turned on near dawn, the national anthem was played and then perhaps a brief sermonette from one of the local religious leaders who had landed a gig in television. TV ran until when Jack Paar (then later Johnny Carson) signed off. The national anthem was played and then television went home to their families and bed.

Then one day, television started to take itself seriously and things would never be the same. You can thank Newton N. Minnow for this, be it good or bad, but after a speech in 1961, typically called The Vast Wasteland speech, television became a serious medium because it would never do to have empty minded entertainment. Part of his words in 1961:

“But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom.”

Which is to say, almost fifty years later, that not much has changed with television. Some things did change, however, most notably television news. In that 1960’s era, a national sense of urgency filled the land. The Russians had launched the first satellite into outer space in 1957, and the United States was eager to win the space race. The President had announced that America would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The threat of nuclear war was an ever present fact of life. Conventional war was ramping up, very quietly at first, in Southeast Asia. And in that era, television news had earned its place.

Most of all, this would be the beginning of a time when the reporting of news would take on a serious and complex cloak of dignity, when what the television said meant something. In that era, there were typically three choices of which news you heard. What had started out with 15 minutes grew into 30 minutes, and then an hour and maybe even an additional half hour. Since there were only three outlets, people often had the shared experience of the news. You could strike up a conversation with someone that you barely knew, starting off with “Did you see Huntley / Brinkley last night?”

So many of them had been correspondents during World War II, when freedom of thought was under serious threat and winning the war was an important goal. They spoke with the gravity of people who had been shot at during their coverage of the war. Others, such as Dan Rather, spoke with the gravity of having worked a natural disaster, Hurricane Carla; I remember Hurricane Carla, I was there. In any case, television news began its ascendency in that era, and when Walter Chronkite announced that the Viet Nam war was unwinnable, people took it seriously. No matter that U. S. troops and the ARVN had beaten back the enemy during the Tet Offensive. Truth is the first casualty of war.

As television grew out of its adolescence, its role in American life grew also. At the local level, television news became a major component in any television station’s business model. The demand was insatiable; the profits were so, too. Because the news was a rich source of revenue, spending followed along. News departments grew in size, technology followed along; satellite trucks and helicopters became indispensible. News anchors found themselves at the very best restaurant tables. Their power and influence were renown, and woe be to the politician who did not yield to their whim. Our view of the world became the view of those living in New York City and on the West Coast, because they were the ones that chose what we saw, what we read and, in the end, what we thought. Certainly one of the greatest high points was on the Johnny Carson show when a 22-year old Hollywood starlet began talking on television about how icky nuclear war is.

Of course, this was all to change; fast-forward to today. And remember the small, brief, tiny comment from Warren Buffett: “As long as newspapers were essential to readers, they were essential to advertisers, he said. But news is now available in many other venues.” He was talking about the newspapers, but he could just as easily be talking about television news. There are considerably more outlets for the news than just television, much less local television. So, what is happening to the newspapers now appears to be approaching television. One clue can be found in this photograph, which I lifted from a local blog, Live Apartment Fire. It certainly gives you a sense of the way that things are going.

The New and The Old

LAF covers the local media from the inside out, and is an interesting view into that world. It reveals the behind-the-scenes stuff, such as sending reporters to “Back Pack School”. It also offers a clue to the state of mind of television management, and they have to be concerned. Certainly the television stations are looking at their numbers also and realizing that the golden days are over. This is not to say that they are going out of business.

You always end up viewing the world from the perspective of your special interests. For me, it is my beloved railroads, and what you see there can certainly reflect upon the world at large, perhaps even accurately. When the railroads were new, they were ascendant; this new technology revolutionized travel and transport. Dime novels were written about the heroic railroaders and every boy wanted to grow up to be a locomotive engineer. As with any new technology, there was the temptation to maximize profits, which is not necessarily a bad thing since improved efficiency has benefits in many areas. When the railroads began to exceed their reach, the American public reacted and Congress passed regulations which effectively put the railroads into a state of perpetual decay. As competing forms of transportation emerged, and the government systematically supported them, the railroads began to founder. In my youth, my parents were concerned about my interest in such a dying institution. Of course, in the fullness of time, the railroads would be deregulated and their natural role in transportation would return to what it is today. The railroads were too important to fail, but they were able to do it in spite of a governmental presence.

Television news has had some noble moments. The press actively covered the civil rights movement; the American public saw, and were appalled. The press can also be spectacularly lazy. One local television reporter used to do live shots from a certain home improvement store simply because it was a five minute drive from the studio. Television news will not go away, but it will change. We have relied upon the news reporters to protect our interests. Now, at a time when government spokespeople speak empty words, we need the media to determine the actual truth, not the relativistic truth of those who seek to deceive.

We are in the midst of societal changes equal to the moving of tectonic plates, and just about as visible. Periodically, rumblings from far below the surface tell you that something is happening. One thing that has been lost is a sense of common perspective. When it was just the three television networks, the citizens had a sense of being together. Now with a multitude of news sources, and not all of them broadcast over the air, things have become fragmented, we share less together.

At the same time there is some source of hope. Regardless of governmental regulations or whatever slick idea tries to force people to do something, it is the silent hand of the market that is the final arbiter.

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