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Television news: Windbags and hot air |
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TheSequitur.com Editorial Board
Nov. 19, 2006
Off-season Super Tuesday came and went. Civic-minded Americans who made the effort got their chance to chart the nation’s course during the Nov. 7 midterm election. Some candidates conceded while others rejoiced in victory. All the while, television media blitzed us with a steady stream of election programming full of windbags and hot air.
Voters anticipating more from the Fourth Estate than a play-by-play horse race fueled by partisan nitpicking and finger pointing will have to wait another election cycle.
This year’s election news was choked by scandal and abuse of power rather than platforms and visions for the future. While some politicians tossed about immigration and tax proposals, television journalists oversimplified the issues and instead allowed themselves to be strung up by puppeteering politicos jockeying for power.
Rather than educate viewers on the candidates’ positions on global issues including the emergence of communist China, fixing what we’ve broken in Iraq, the continuing violence in Afghanistan, not to mention numerous domestic issues, television news reports instead spewed the same sound bites from the latest nincompoop to distance himself or herself from Mark Foley.
Admittedly, today’s news networks have to compete with island castaways eating entrails to get a date with a geriatric rapper. But in this era of million-dollar political campaigns and highly powered lobbying efforts there is a lot on the line. We understand there are many forces that push and pull news coverage. But just because that is the reality doesn’t mean we should abandon the ideal.
Instead of using high political stakes as an excuse to tiptoe around the issues facing our nation, we need the press to be vigilant watchdogs because the stakes are so high.
We challenge any journalism entity to create a news network that is not to news what MTV is to music, even if that’s not what the public demands. Just give it a shot, nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake.
Senior Editor Dwayne Robinson abstains from all staff editorials.
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