We are in an age of neverending non-stories.  Everbody now ... Is it a Civil War in Iraq??  I love the Foreign Editor of the LA Times saying of course it's a civil war ... Duh!  Two sides have taken up arms to assert their vision of the right path for the country. 

Maybe there should be a basic bifurcation of news ... one part reporting on the idiot positions of opposing sides, and the other part common sense.  Of course the politicians and lawyers think this is a very complex, intricate discussion ... that's what they do.  And then to add insult to injury and invite academicians into the discussion, and you're looking at hours!  Perfectly logical ... just as lawyers have spent years learning to dazzle everybody with their intellectual and verbal footwork, and politicians aspire to take obfuscation to new heights, academicians have spent their professional lives in the minutiae of their topics.

Then there's the poisoned spy story ... when will it ever end?!  Does anybody really care about this guy?  First, he was poisoned with thalium, then it was Polonium 210, then we were told it was a uniquely dangerous radioactive substance that is incredibly rare, then we were told that it was discovered by Madame Curie, then we were told it was in almost everything around us including grains, then we were told we could buy it on the internet.  Can this possibly be serious story?  OK, maybe in London where it's a "garage door kills kid" kind of local story.

But holy cow! ... Our constantly perplexed President arrives in Jordan to meet with the PM of Iraq and he bags the meeting, but the White house says it wasn't an important meeting anyway!  Then we learn that he might have decided to ditch W. for the evening because of another leaked memo to the NY Times!  What?!?  We don't see two pretty damned important issues there? Nope!  No big deal ... not compared to whether it's a Civil War in Iraq or the fool spy who died a couple of days ago.  But at least all three anchors are in Amman!  What a profession!  Can anybody with an ounce of journalism in them imagine having to report on this shit?

It took me awhile to understand that the News business is a secret society, especially so in public broadcasting.  I knew the latter first, because the "Club" aspect of public radio & TV was so obvious; and much more so in public radio because it was so much more successful.

Still, the farther away from daily TV news I get, the more I know its Clubby nature.  A lot of it is simple knowledge; even as the general public has an ever-increasing sense of awareness and closeness to the News, it is still a much more sophisticated process, despite itself.  How important is the "daily agenda" and who sets it?  What impact does it have on the actual news?  Is the daily similarity of newscast rundowns, both local and national, prima facie evidence of the agenda?  Is there a difference between facts and impact, and which directs newscast content?  Does the audience understand that the easiest news to do is "breaking news," such as fires, shootings, and even civil actions?  So, what does it mean that those topics dominate the first segments of most newscasts? So, where does real news, if it's available at all, end up?

The answer is weekends, at least at network newscasts.  And it's been that way for decades.  As a former network news producer and manager, that was always the damned trade-off ... you wanted your correspondent to be on the "big show" (in my case the Brokaw newscast) but where your story was going to be shorter and highly-homogenized through endless editing ... but you wanted to get the substance of the report on the weekend show where you would have more time, and the tyranny of the agenda was less important.  After GE took over and NBC brought in the McKinsey bean-counters in the mid-'80's, this translated into an analysis of your correspondent's (and eventually your own) "story count."  

Of course, that just represented another impetus to trim length and content to conform to the increasingly formulaic Nightly News and its increasingly slavish reliance on the Nightly Numbers.  As most viewers know, this is driven by the advertisers, actually in the form of the advertising agencies who define the meaning of the numbers.  But they lie, or at least mislead.  Common sense and the real numbers dictate that "young viewers" (18-25) could care less about the news, unless its Jon Stewart or online.  The "core demographic" (25-54) is the one we're all supposed to care about, but think about it ... they may be buying the nappies and sugar flakes, but it's the Boomers who are the big spending present and future.  More than that, they're the ones who actually care about the state of the country and the world, which is what the News is supposedly all about.  I'll buy the core demographic when it comes to prime time crap, but not the network news (and I exclude cable news from this discussion).

But let's get back to the weekends.  Frankly, it's when you can actually learn stuff.  And you also have the chance to get away from NBC's ridiculous focus on Katrina aftermath as a requirement in every newscast during the week.  There was real insight in CBS's story about women now driving the electronics buying these days.  And they were happy to use a hefty segment of the ABC interview with King Abdullah of Jordan from the morning because -- gasp! -- it was important.  What happens on weekend shows is that trend stories make air, and issues with feature storylines get the airtime they deserve.  That's what makes the network tendency to preempt weekend newscasts with sports so annoying.  Worse, local stations will actually think their alleged news filled with meaningless crime stories should eclipse network news on weekends.  (I'll accept that weather and sports are worthwhile, but usually holdable until the late news.)

Finally, I hate to see the old classic warhorse of quality news, CBS's Sunday Morning, continue its slide into indiscrimate features.  It's still the highest quality news in regular production -- a true jewel in a rubble of coarse gravel.
And it does take risks, like the lovely piece on Moldovia this morning.  But there was too much movie trivia, with the Hepburn piece uncharacteristically thin for a Martha Teichner report (suspect a triumph of the correspondent's current interest over an editor/producer's good sense), the "Good News" lead segment a lukewarm attempt at something unique, and the potentially fascinating Pilgrims piece very confusing.  You had to wait 3/4 of the way through the 90-minute program before you got the Harry Smith profile of Bette Midler, a wonderful example of the classic Sunday Morning-style segment.  It's still the best thing on network television, but I'd wish for a return to the elegance and perpetual insight of old.  After all, with a week to prepare it should be excellent from start to finish!

The Bottom Line?  The money, of course.  How much is enough??  After Viacom bought CBS, the Minneapolis affiliate was surprised to hear that the wonderful 35% profits it brought in each year were not enough!  Viacom wanted 50%, and so the belt-tightening and layoffs began.  And it's not just TV.  The poor sods at the LA Times actually thought that their previous layoffs and budget cuts that left a 20% operating profit would be good enough for their Tribune bosses in Chicago.  Wrong!  Despite a principled stand by the publisher and editor (broadly dismissed by Wall Street "experts"), they were fired and the new goal of 30% profits instituted, the staff cuts yet to come. 

C'mon!  This used to be a semi-honorable profession.  I now tell my son, a gifted writer and successful school newspaper editor, to avoid this profession like the plague.  It just can't be all about monster profits ... that can't be allowed to define a pillar of our democracy.  It's wrong, and unnecessary.   The network news divisions are spending $60-75-million dollars a year - MINIMUM - just on anchor and senior executive salaries.  I'd like to see MSNBC accept the fact that it's #3, settle into its $100-million+/- income, and do the news with cleverness and insight, thereby instantly distinguishing itself from certainly Fox, the cable leader.  Where's the downside?!  Do good quality work and make lots of money!  Sounds like a win-win to me. 

I didn't watch the CBS Katie Show tonight.  I'm actually sorry.  I couldn't believe they led the other night with the school bus crash, and then brought up the idiot issue of seatbelts.  Then, the prospect that their main black reporter, Byron Pitts, might do yet another touchy-feely, breathy story -- worse, yet another story on Ed Bradley (whom all of us admire, but enough already!) -- was just too much for me.  Even faced with missing far-and-away the best foreign correspondent in Lara Logan, I went to Charlie Gibson, with commercial checks on Brian. 

And anyway, tonight was a classic example of why the BBC is the best TV news in the world.  How can you beat the solid, revealingly insightful reporting of Jeremy Bowen in Lebanon and then the inestimable John Simpson?!  Editors at the US networks won't let their reporters offer those kinds of on-the-ground insights, mainly because most of their reporters don't have the experience to pull it off.

Then, in Prime Time, the Criminal Minds episode put the lie to the idiotic "ripped from the headlines" nonsense at Law & Order by doing a really elegant, insightful program on the islamic and personal underpinnings of a possible terrorist attach inside the U.S.  Sensitive scripting would help almost anybody have a new appreciation of what drives extremists and also an alternative approach to torture and maltreatment.  Very well done.

Earlier in the day, I had the chance to watch the indescribably beautiful Martha MacCallum on Fox News.  Wow, she's good on-air, and amazingly changed from when I worked with her at CNBC.  No less beautiful, but now a sort of NYC version of a Valley Girl, speaking in gushy, hip phrases and gasps. Taking on burning social issues such as the "war" between Kelly Ripa and Rosie O'Donnell.  Yikes! Tough, trenchant stuff from a former very skilled reporter and anchor dealing with the latest business news on CNBC.  She was just terrific at CNBC, while also raising a young family.  How things change.

Both of us are ... or were ... news junkies, 'cause we're both journalists (go figure!).   Sandra's the print journalist -- therefore the "serious" one -- and I'm the broadcast guy, therefore the superficial one.  And so it goes.  The discussion (read: argument) back and forth is not worth much space; it's probably not much different from other print vs. broadcast arguments.  It's been sorta fun to watch the print folks come to grips with the same audience realities that we've been facing for years now.  Of course, we've continued to look for alternatives and multiple platforms, while print has watched whole corporations go under before they've, also, started to look at their content as the key. 

This is a useful double reversal, in that print was left in the multi-media wake, until recently when it finally realized it's compelling advantage ... complete and substantive journalism!  What a dumb-ass dropkick ... the sum of newspaper reporting being not only the source of much TV reporting but also maybe 5-10 times the amount of facts/reporting than other media.  So, the possibility of "slicing and dicing" the reporting data in myriad forms translates into revenue.  DUH!!

As for TV news, we tried to watch Katie and CBS.  Both of us very much enjoyed and appreciate Bob Schieffer and a return to something resembling serious TV news, but that is now gone.  None of them can replace the sheer commitment and comprehension of Peter Jennings.  Brian is elegant and fun; Katie is earnest and personable; Charlie is experienced and less than Peter; Fox is preoccupied and a bad joke.  CNN is still uncomfortable doing just news and doesn't understand that it will pay off if it will just see the lesson of print.

I'm taping the Ted Koppel Iran special on Discovery tonight.  It's title and premise sounds completely ridiculous to me ... Iran-the most dangerous??  Get a life, Ted!  More dangerous than America?!  I think this is a real test of this country ... does anyone think that many countries around the world don't increasingly see the US as the biggest threat??  Who's doing all the invading these days?  Now, hold on -- it doesn't matter what WE think -- I certainly think our original global values (currently forgotten) as a beacon of freedom and opportunity are persuasive -- it's a new world out there and we need to spend important time appreciating what the world thinks of US.

But hey!  I haven't even seen his program yet!  Still, I have heard his apologist assessments of the State Department (in line with Martha "I've never been in a humvee I didn't like" Raddatz's coverage of the White House via the Pentagon) and I'm way tired of the lame assessments of purported "media experts" on our government actions.  Are there similarities between Vietnam and Iraq?  Of course there are.  Were the American people lied to about the reasons for invading?  Yes, of course we were.  DUH!  Did any of us understand that our original construct of a U.S. ARMY with a million or so solidiers had been changed without our knowing?  Of course not.  Did we clearly understand that our leaders had a new appreciation of how to lead the people that included regular, bald-faced lying to those same people who (sort of) elected you??  No.  We had to see our President and especially our Vice President appear on national TV and outright lie about things they MUST HAVE KNOWN were readily available on videotape to refute them.  And indeed, they were, within barely minutes, pulled from archives to show them as irrepresible liars.  These aren't POLITICAL sentiments; they're just facts.  It's amazing.  I would never have believed it. 

But here we are.  I hope it gets better.  And in the past I might have relied on journalism to set the pace.  No more.  The Washington Press Corps is completely bankrupt.  NPR is now Mainstream.  PBS is befuddled; Jim Lehrer is gone most of the time (and any responsible producer could produce that show for half the cost, and better); PBS' connection to David Brancaccio is just sad, especially as compared to Bill Moyers; and national PBS still has absolutely NO interest in the other 250-some stations beyond the core, highly-expensive 10 major stations.  People need to watch & listen to the BBC.  And that hasn't changed for a decade.

The Bottom Line:  We are not the leader, on any front other than sheer wealth and, I guess, comfortable quality of life.  Everything else is below par. 

Wonderful.

I have this feeling that everybody wants to know whether working at a Catholic college might change my Journalism, such as it is.  Not yet, is the answer.  More likely, it's going to solidify my Journalism, in that I've always believed that "my" Journalism is a mission.  "Poor dumb me" has been my long-held assessment of what I do ... believing that good daily journalism is as fundamental to our form of democracy as free speech. 

And it's not as if there's much contention or drama in today's good journalism, so I might just as well have a catholic approach.  And the Sisters of St. Joseph, who run Chestnut Hill, are a very progressive order with strong global commitments and a fundamental sense of seeing people as "dear neighbors." Sounds incredibly saccharine and "goody two-shoes" but the underlying sentiment is profound and socially meaningful.  Ah-ha, you say ... see, it's already happening ... he's succumbing.  Maybe, but probably not.  I've always held that sort of attitude toward others, with the proviso that I normally need a prospect of reciprocation before I offer assistance. 

I think that's the extent of my new philosophizing at this point.  I am finding that I want to focus my future work on new understanding and prospects of global media, to the extent that I pursue additional research and academic positions.  I think that jury is still out ... I'm not willing to take this new direction seriously if my expectations (and, sadly, those of others) don't match my assessment of my performance.  In short, this is up to me to see if my classroom results match my mouthy rhetoric.  Truthiness will out.

It's difficult to accept the early reaction of students who have expressed interest in my Media/TV Club at Chestnut Hill.  They're very supportive of me and having -- finally -- a working TV operation.  But their interest in doing TV, and especially anything resembling Journalism (i.e. hard work), is barely negligible.  I'm told that I need to "set an example" but I think I've already done that with several projects that I've led.  It's time to expect them to do something, and I'm not getting it.  Very discouraging.  I say that I would have jumped in at that age, but of course, only if I was forced to, as I was in the Navy.  So I look for new approaches that will entice them to take their "extra" time away from girls, iPods, screwing around with friends, whatever.  I'm back to "I'll do it myself."  And I'll succeed, but will I?

So, I say, given the preceding, what is good journalism?  Is it "fire in the belly," antagonistic idealism, a profound sense of good intentions, a perverted version of "just the facts," the current craze of what anybody decides to write is news, or something new to conform to our new world??  

I just went through an Open House at the College, sitting at a table in the arena with high school students coming up to ask about "English & Communications."  What most of them ask about is Journalism ... and I say, "you'll get plenty of journalism here, including a couple of courses."  We don't have a Journalism major, and I say that's good news.  I believe in journalism as a crucial tool, preferably taught at high school or even middle school levels.  But as an academic discipline? ... nope.  At the college level it needs to be all about liberal arts, with an ocassional course in the practice of journalism, so students have a context.  

I often mention Columbia, which has one of the most prestigious Journalism schools in the country, but does not offer any undergraduate journalism courses.  It has an immediate impact for aspiring college students, but I don't agree with it.  I've always believed that Columbia should offer undergraduate journalism, but not as they would at the J-school.  It's a process course, and it should be expanded to a content course.  That's much different from a graduate course, where the refinements of the craft, the broad context of its potential content, and the varied applications of the craft should be explored.

At Chestnut Hill, Journalism is included in the list of the English & Comm department, but is not regularly offered.  However, now that I'm at Chestnut Hill, any television or media course will, by definition, be about journalism.   And that may be the most meaningful route to journalism they'll find, at CHC or elsewhere.  At least that's my hope.

As Linda Ellerbee used to say, "and so it goes."  Journalism as we know it. 

What a delightful surprise!  I certainly expected the House to change hands -- even for some of the wrong reasons -- but I thought the Senate was more than a long shot.  I'm sorry that Harold Ford didn't squeak through; I thought he sounded very reasonable and solid, and probably should have won on the basis of that sleazy, scuzzy ad the Republicans ran against him ... so sleazy that his opponent even had to disown it.  I saw Ford on an unusually good Bill Maher HBO show shortly before the election and he was excellent.  He'll be back.

And guess who else was "back," albeit only in the limited minds of Texas voters.  Yup ... Tom Delay was voted back in with 65% of the vote in his district, even though he was running.  Jeez, you can't make this stuff up!  And it's also a reminder that it's not just the lying scoundrels that cause us to look and act so foolishly ... it's the PEEEE-PUL!

I'm still mystified why Karl and George W. didn't announce the Rummy departure before the election though I'm glad.  I think the image of the Prez making such a big symbolic change might well have affected the vote in favor of Republicans.  But thank heavens, they got it wrong again!

I suppose we can, again, say "only in America" as we partially invest in democracy with our votes, but mainly know we can enjoy a return to a special peace without the endless, pounding, insulting, embarrassing, mindlessly repetitive cacophony of commercials for candidates lining up at the trough.  Of course, we could also enjoy The Daily Show's Election Special, with very special guest commentator Dan Rather.  While I think Jon Stewart's show has been slipping in recent months into more sophomoric humor and away from the extremely clever insights into daily events of the last several years, it is still an unusually pertinent "take" on the news and one that deserves to be on five nights a week instead of just four.

I've also been slow to accept Stephen Colbert's new show since, with the exception of really clever and insightful tidbits like the concept of "truthiness,"
it seemed somewhat lame after the broad, multi-format genius of Stewart and his staff.  But I must say Colbert's gotten a lot better, and I think the following look back at the highlights of Republican leadership in Congress is the kind of "let the pictures speak for themselves" truthiness that has defined both shows.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/09/colbert-pays-tribute-to-the-outgoing-republican-majority/

The election ended up being an interesting part of my introduction to Chestnut Hill College, a small, Catholic, surprisingly progressive college in suburban Philadelphia where I'm now running their TV studio and teaching.  Even though the school maintains an unusual commitment to American connection to the rest of the world -- it requires all students to take a year-long core course on Global Awareness -- I was stunned to learn that there was virtually no attention afforded to the issues or process of a significant election.

I did run a "test" program in the studio Thursday with half a dozen students, members of my nascent Media/TV Club.  I set up the program format, including teleprompter script, focused on the extraordinary midterm election and a discussion of campus reactions.  The students were then the co-anchors, visiting "guest analyst," camera people, technical director, and teleprompter operator.

I must say that the instantaneous and complete rejection of any knowledge, sense of commitment, or awareness of any College support of political options or electoral responsibilities was unsettling.  There was no sense of the absentee ballot option, no sense of opportunity to access polling places, no sense of political issues integration into the curriculum, and certainly no appreciation of the fundamental importance of exercising this basic right.  Pretty discouraging. 

So, I ended up with a California student saying nobody on campus would understand her perspective, a freshman history student saying nobody told her anything, a sophomore saying she was from New Jersey and didn't even know who was running, and a North Philly sophomore saying he didn't have a ride to the polls.  Wow.  Sounds to me like a live student political TV program, had it been possible, would have been really depressing.

There was some levity, as one of the anchors posed the question, "what do you think about puppies?"  I'm thinking that question -- captured on the control room computer by three cameras from different angles -- may well come back to haunt him.