New sources feed the distrust of news media

During my 33 years as a newspaper editor, I was bothered by the distrust and even contempt many Americans felt for the news media. Journalists were perennially near the bottom of the "confidence" list, down there with used car salesmen and politicians.

As a child of what might be considered the golden age of print journalism, when most respectable cities had two or more newspapers, when many households subscribed to a morning and an afternoon newspaper, when it was claimed that a printing press amounted to "a license to print money" because newspaper advertising was so dominant and so profitable, when nationally syndicated columnists were closely followed, respected and even beloved nationwide, when Americans didn't believe news until they saw it in their newspaper, I embarked on what I thought was a secure profession. I watched as the Watergate scandal, ably and thoroughly reported by the Washington Post, New York Times and other newspapers, brought down a president.

The lack of confidence in the news media I saw 50 years ago has only gotten worse — much worse. Despite improved professionalism, strengthened professional standards, better journalism education, new codes of conduct and other efforts to improve journalism and the public's opinion of the media, things have only gotten worse.

Why? I've given this some thought through my days in the newsroom and since then about why the public so distrusts the news media. The election of a president whose favorite phrase is "fake news" and who excoriates the news media as "the enemies of the people" hasn't helped, but the problem goes deeper than Trump's tweets.

It seems to me that the advent of the 24-hour cable news format has been bad for journalism. CNN and its imitators have created new jobs in journalism, but they have also overwhelmed the public with information and analysis people have trouble digesting or accepting. Add to that social media and the internet-based news sites of varying degrees of professionalism, accuracy or factuaity. In that corner of the news business, "fake news" is a real thing — fiction created for (usually) political purposes. Beware the unknown "news" sources.

All news all the time requires an enormous amount of talking/writing. The 24-hour news cycle must be fed. "Dead air" cannot be tolerated. Someone must be saying something or showing something or shouting every second of every day 365 days of the year to feed these beasts. There is not enough "real news" of interest to most viewers to fill the 24-hour cycle, so the same news is recycled over and over, and guest commentators are offered to analyze the news and give their insight and opinions. This goes on forever, every hour, every day, every week, every year.

The result has been that cable stations have engaged in more partisan opinion in order to attract more viewers. The more slanted and more angry the commentary, the better for attracting viewers of a certain ilk. Like political candidates who have to "play to their base," cable stations seek out their right-wing or left-wing constituencies and feed them the slanted views they love. Finding opposing viewpoints requires switching channels. Fox News perfected this formula but is not alone in its use of the strategy.

Along with "Talk Radio," in which no claim is too outlandish and every claim evokes anger, cable news, social media and internet "news" sites have created a deeply divided American electorate. And these developments have created an even greater distrust of the news media. Both extremes of the political spectrum can complain about news outlets on the other side, leaving the journalism even more distrusted than ever before.

Filling the Olympics' 24-hour news cycle

The Sochi Olympics are over. The athletes performed. The winners stood on podiums and accepted their medals. There were exultations and disappointments — the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" in the television cliche, but there was no terrorist attack, and the accommodations and competition venues held up throughout the fortnight of events.

Who would've thought this just three weeks ago as the world's sports entertainment media descended on this Black Sea resort? All the talk at the time was about the likelihood of terrorism in this tumultuous region and the appalling lack of modern conveniences in the hotel rooms set aside for the news media.

Blame the 24-hour news cycle for this deceptive anticipation and stoking of anxiety. When you're sent to a far-off site at great expense to report on the opening of the Olympic Games, you have to report something, event if there is nothing of consequence to report. So the prelude to the opening of the Olympics was all about how Islamist extremists in the region could infiltrate Olympic security and turn the games into a tragic act of terrorism and how the lodging was not up to New York City or London standards and how the Russian president was exercising his totalitarian instincts at Sochi.

Over the next two weeks, none of these preludes segued into the symphony of the Olympics. The games went well, despite some disappointments and some complaints, as are common at all Olympic games. The weather at Sochi was warmer than expected, but the athletes dealt with the warmer temperatures that turned the snow at some events slushy or icy. Whatever the conditions, all of the athletes had to deal with it more or less equally.

The 24-hour news cycle that turned the build-up to the Olympics into an epic of fear-mongering also turns a simple college football game into an all-day extravaganza. The ESPN Game Day crew arrives half a day before the game and talks and talks and talks about every imaginable aspect of the two teams, the players, the coaches, the cheerleaders, the university administration, the weather, the tradition, the history, ad nauseam. Whatever you do, you have to fill the 24-hour news cycle, even when there's not much there in the way of news.

We've become a nation of voyeurs

I guess I missed it, or most of it, anyway. I was not sitting in front of the television Thursday eagerly devouring every tidbit of the drama as authorities in Colorado chased a homemade helium balloon that was thought to harbor a 6-year-old boy. But apparently thousands, maybe millions, of viewers were anxiously absorbing the drama. And scores, perhaps hundreds, of journalists were feeding the insatiable 24-hour news cycle with the latest exaggerated drama.

I heard reports on the radio (NPR) as I traveled Thursday afternoon, wondering at the strangeness of this tale and the inflated importance of this incident.

Cable news and other "new media" outlets were supposed to expand our choices of news sources and make us better-informed. Instead, they have turned us into a nation of voyeurs. In the process, we have lost all concept of the dimensions of importance and newsworthiness.

Assuming — and this is not beyond doubt — that this balloon trip was not a melodrama scripted by publicity-hungry parents, that the family really did believe the 6-year-old really was trapped in the high-flying balloon (he was later found hiding in the attic), this was a localized incident. It was important to the parents, other family members, relatives, neighbors and friends. For a handful of people, it was life-or-death suspense. For the rest of the nation, its only significance was curiosity — or voyeuristic delight.

This voyeurism is not new. American newspapers turned the Lindbergh kidnapping into a national soap opera, but at least that involved someone who had achieved something, a true national hero. Today's news channel soap operas more often involve people who are "famous for being famous" or cast members of an unrealistic "reality show."

Yes, a child's life was at stake. But how many children across the nation died Thursday? Some died in tragic accidents that did not involve a backyard helium balloon. Some died from illness. Seventy-six U.S. children, according to the last count I saw, have died of swine flu. Each death was a tragedy from which their families will never fully recover. The average news consumer had no more stake in the fate of Falcon Heene than in the fates of thousands of other children in jeopardy across the country. The news trucks with their big antennae and tearfully sincere reporters cannot be at the scene of every tragedy, so they magnify one dramatic moment into a national crisis.

Meanwhile, four American soldiers died in Afghanistan, two U.S. warplanes collided during training, Congress is moving toward passage of a health care bill American consumers know little about, millions of Americans are out of work, nuclear-armed Pakistan might be at the edge of civil war, Iraq is growing more violent as Americans withdraw, many thousands of Americans are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure, and Iran continues its effort to gain nuclear capability.

But, oh wait! Falcon Heene is safe and sound; he'd been hiding in the attic all along. Aren't we glad?