MEDIA CRITICISM:

Let's Apply Auditing Principles to Our Assessment of 'News'

I’ve been a news junkie since high school days. I’ve been a groupie of "60 Minutes" (CBS), "Nightline" (ABC), "Dateline" (NBC), and "The McLaughlin Group" (PBS) from their very beginnings.

Since my business school days, I’ve "audited" the news. When I am struck by a particular news story, I compare to see how other "sources" presented it. I sometimes even research the facts and numbers behind it. What began for me as an act of desire for further knowledge has become a personal quest of necessity. You see, I am not one bit pleased with how reporting/journalism has digressed (and not progressed) regarding its sacred mandate "to inform the public" since my boyhood days of watching Morrow, Cronkite, and Huntley and Brinkley.

In the year since I began writing for newspapers, I’ve learned so very much. I’m not a journalist; my training is that of an historian, an economist, and an accountant (I certainly learned plenty in 21 semesters of college). The evening news and major newspapers may provide the WHO, the WHAT, the WHEN, the WHERE and the HOW of happenings, but rarely (if ever) do they lay the foundations for their respective audiences of the WHY! It is left for their "audience" to ask "WHY is the media presenting THIS, at this time, and in this manner?"

Mega-media journalism/reporting now seems concerned with agendas, with ratings, with market share, and with cross selling/marketing. The way I see it, we’ve gone far beyond the "if it bleeds, it leads." The comic Orwellian media circus of the Peter Finch/Faye Dunaway movie "Network" is here. Who gives a damn if the story is correct, true, or fairly presented? They have to scoop the competition--they can always apologize in the closing credits next week or print a retraction on page 11 in the Saturday Edition. But... when you’ve been slammed in primetime or crucified on page one, where can you really go to get your reputation back? The damage is done.

The network evening news broadcasts have become a half-hour of generic pabulum. If you don’t believe me, channel surf between them. They generally lead-in with the same story, have the same midsections, and end on the same highlight focus--all in 60-second bites. The talking heads are all beautifully dressed, perfectly made up, and impeccably coiffured--and I’m talking about the guys here, too, okay? Sure, every now and again the anchors get out in the trenches and produce a piece of "original" journalism, usually as an in-depth reporting on one of their network’s news magazine shows to prove (to themselves) that they still have "it."

Dan Rather did one such offering on "60 minutes" about President Bush’s National Guard service record in light of newly "found" documents. While that segment lasted only a few minutes, the storm resulting from questioning the veracity of the "documents" has outlasted Hurricanes Charlie, Frances and Ivan.

Rather has been hounded by his fellow media in much the same manner he used in making his own career--back when he smelled blood and doggedly pursued Nixon after Watergate. In 1981, CBS chose to fill Cronkite’s shoes with Rather’s boots. Cronkite always ended his nightly reporting with "and that’s the way it is!" Because of Dan’s recent "evidential matter" disaster, his audience now adds--"Or, is it?"

Yep, I’ve been thinking about this. You should be thinking, too.