Two Views of TV News, That ‘Crazy Profession’ : It’s in a Sorry State From Chasing the Ratings

The Calendar stories reporting the dismissal of John Marshall from KNBC (Jan. 22) and still another personnel upheaval in the KCBS newsroom (Jan. 23) accurately depict the dismal state of TV news. But overlooked or passed over lightly were a couple of points that deserve further consideration.

When KNXT (now KCBS Channel 2) launched the hourlong “Big News,” the first local TV news program of its kind in the nation, Jim Brown and I were the two general assignment reporters, and more often than not we covered four stories a day--and did not feel abused.

Stories ran as long as necessary to be told comprehensibly and we covered what our editors--with our input--thought the audience needed to know.

In its heyday, when ratings were not quite the mania they are now with TV station managements, KNXT routinely racked up 24 ratings for the 6 p.m. news, unbelievable as that may sound (KCBS gets 5s now). The other stations were not even players.

So much for whether viewers would be bored by straightforward hard news.

The first big change occurred at least 20 years ago, in the early ‘70s, when the consultants, the market researchers, took over. I recall a specific instance when our news director announced that consultants hired by the station had decreed that henceforth we would cover what market surveys showed the audience wanted.

That change--the frantic chase after the fad of the moment--marked the start of the downward slide from which Channel 2 has never recovered.

Of course all the other stations joined in this mad race . . . and the competition to find the lowest common denominator of public taste hasn’t hit bottom yet.

A corollary development was the change in the very structure of TV news itself . . . ever shorter stories emphasizing jazzed-up visuals with as many quick cuts as you can cram into 90 seconds, taking as their model a Madonna music video.

What about content? What is TV news telling people that they need to know about the great political, social and economic issues in this increasingly complex world?

Precious little. TV news no longer trusts that the viewer has a mind or an imagination.

That’s why John Marshall was let go. For many years, John and I sat side by side at adjoining desks in the Channel 4 newsroom (I moved to KNBC in 1973) and as we pecked away at our word processors, we’d speculate on the sorry state of the TV news business and how long we might survive.

I still wonder: What is happening to the much ballyhooed people’s right to know? The right to know what?