‘Action News’ Reflects a Changing City

On a flight to Seattle, a Yale-educated Westside attorney in the next seat complained about the “Action News” format KCBS. “Murders, robberies, rapes, car chases, crime--those things aren’t part of my life.”

The complaint was a common one during my nearly 16 months as news director of “Channel 2 Action News,” most shrilly articulated by Howard Rosenberg, L.A. Times television critic. During that time, Rosenberg wrote 14 columns criticizing the quality of reporting on KCBS-TV, the types of stories we aired, our increased ratings and the unhappiness of selected, unnamed staff members.

The attorney on the plane articulated the common thread of Rosenberg’s criticism: “Action News” had become more threatening, and more like Los Angeles itself.

In 1971, when I first became a journalist, there was no way to tell from watching television news that Los Angeles was a diverse city. News decisions were made by a small group of executives whose backgrounds were similar. Their target audience was people like themselves. So each station did similar stories, and viewers had little choice for news.

Since 1971, Los Angeles has become even more diverse and media choices have exploded. Los Angeles residents can watch up to 40 television channels. Although more channels should mean more choices, Rosenberg uses his column to try to keep newscasts within his narrow vision of news. While he has hailed the growth and development of new television programs and channels, he has denied television news permission to change from the way it was in 1971.

Rosenberg criticized “Action News” as we worked to diversify our hiring, story selection and attitude. Like the attorney on the airplane, he was uncomfortable with news that did not fit into his elitist vision of Los Angeles.

Although Rosenberg thought we spent too much time covering crime and its effects on people, crime is the No. 1 issue in the Los Angeles mayor’s race. We felt it had been under-reported.

By addressing topics important to viewers, “Action News’ ” ratings climbed each month I was at KCBS-TV over the same month a year earlier (which is the most accurate way to measure ratings). In the most recent “sweeps” (February), “Action News’ ” ratings were their highest in 10 years.

Our gains demonstrated that Rosenberg’s television news model of 1971 is no longer relevant to the needs of the entire audience, if it ever was. We showed that there are other ways of defining television news; there will be room for dozens more.

“Television newscasts should be as diverse as all of Los Angeles,” I told the attorney, “not just for critics or the Westside.” The attorney didn’t care. He was moving to Seattle because private school tuition in L.A. is too high.

The journalism we did at “Action News” was not wrong, as Rosenberg would have readers think. It was just different. Los Angeles residents should have access to broadcasts covering the full spectrum of news. Rosenberg has the right to an elitist definition of TV journalism, but he has no right to make his the only definition acceptable.