TV Needs Its Own Contract With America

Television is out of touch with the nation and is in big trouble. But the solution is not necessarily to throw out the bums in charge. Rather, partisan politics aside, the television industry should follow the lead of Republicans and draft a “contract with America.”

Here are some sample proposals:

Balanced Budgets of Newscasts

Newscast budgets (the daily schedules of stories) are usually so unbalanced, if not flat-out slanted and deficient, that they present a distorted view of society, both globally and domestically. This is especially true when it comes to coverage of most minorities, their appearance in stories being largely limited to news connected to violence.

The cumulative impact of this coverage is significant, teaching that mayhem and minorities (code, in this instance, for Latinos and African Americans) are synonymous. Hence, these minorities are to be feared and despised by the rest of us, and made scapegoats for the broader society’s problems.

Overwhelming approval of Proposition 187, the California initiative whose provisions to abort most social services to illegal immigrants is now in legal limbo, may testify to the scapegoat factor.

As evidence of how the cumulative fear factor works on white suburbanites, I offer the following personal anecdote concerning a recent visit to Cleveland.

While walking alone at midday in an upper middle-class neighborhood, I noticed a man approaching me on the sidewalk from the opposite direction. Average-looking guy. Average dress. Still, I felt an instinctive dart of fright (for all I know, he did, too), which vanished only after we had passed each other without incident.

Why the flash of panic? Only one reason, not a rational one: The man was African American.

Anti-Crime Measures

Curtailment of crime news must accompany the balancing of news budgets.

It’s true that street crime is easier and cheaper to cover than more important stories that require greater skills and sophistication on the part of reporters and greater sustained commitment from their bosses, who set priorities.

Yet there’s still no excuse for local stations continuing to lead newscasts with up to a half-dozen stories on violent street crimes, giving them weight far beyond their true significance in the broader context, and creating the false impression that everyone everywhere is constantly in jeopardy.

No wonder that, despite figures showing a decline in violent crime in many locales, many Americans continue to regard it as society’s greatest peril, and that candidates who shout the loudest about being “tough” on crime stand the best chance of being elected.

Voluntary Prayer in Prime Time

You don’t have to be Newt Gingrich, a soldier in the religious right or even moderately devout to dislike mainstream television’s traditional dismissal of theology as something either to ridicule or ignore. Only rarely do prime-time series, for example, depict religious figures as deserving respect--when they’re allowed to surface at all, that is. In fact, you see more hookers, rapists and serial murderers on TV than clerics.

With religion so prominent in the lives of many Americans, you’d think that the major networks would find room on their schedules for an occasional drama series revolving around some churchly edifice, one that neither celebrates nor denigrates religion, but examines its strengths and weaknesses through the lives of ordinary characters.

If religion is boring, why is it important to so many people?

Promo Reform

Nothing is more irritating than prime-time news inserts designed to tease and entice viewers with incomplete information (“Death Takes Hollywood Giant. News at 11”). They must end.

Even worse, though, are promos that withhold critical, possibly life-saving information purely for self-serving reasons.

For example, is the prime-time magazine series “Dateline NBC” in the news business or the suspense business? The answer comes in the current issue of TV Guide, where a large ad for Tuesday’s program carries a photo of a house in flames beneath this shrieking headline:

“There’s a Family Killer in Your House.”

The ad copy describes “an ordinary household product that’s caused countless fires and deaths. The burning question . . . why haven’t you been warned?”

A bigger question: Why isn’t “Dateline NBC” warning you now?

A listing for the program on the next page expands on the ad: “Lea Thompson reports the dangers of a household product that can start fires due to spontaneous combustion. Included are comments from a Seattle fire investigator and some Connecticut families.”

Not included in the ad or TV listing is the name of this supposedly lethal household product. That’s right, nearly five dozen words used as a come-on to hook viewers, but not one identifying this “family killer” that you may have in your house even as you read this.

If the product is that perilous, “Dateline NBC” should announce its name immediately in the cause of saving lives, right? Instead, it has enlisted Product X in the cause of boosting the program’s audience totals during this month’s crucial ratings sweeps that help determine TV advertising rates. The strategy: By omitting possibly critical information, motivate viewers to tune in Tuesday for the big disclosure.

Unless they’re incinerated in the meantime.

Term Limits

Really now, hasn’t Rush Limbaugh been around long enough?