Valley Interview : Rejecting ‘News’ That Tastes Good but Lacks Nourishment

Critics have charged the news media--broadcast and print--with reducing their commitment to serious coverage and relying more on sensational and titillating news to attract an audience.

Defenders of the media claim they are trying to keep pace with the wants and needs of their audiences. Among those who question the media’s current drift is Maureen Rubin, a lawyer and journalism professor at Cal State Northridge. A former press officer in the Carter White House, Rubin has been at CSUN for the past 12 years, teaching journalism ethics and, this semester, a course called “Sleaze and the Media.”

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Question: Many have criticized a growing emphasis on sensational stories, particularly where celebrities are involved. Given that people have always liked a good scandal, is the change all that dramatic?

Answer: At various periods in history, papers became sensationalistic in order to boost sales. But when you got inside, you generally found important stories. They offered you a tasty tidbit--kind of like nachos--to bring you in, and once you got inside there was usually some meat and potatoes.

Now, you can sit through an entire newscast, and all you’re getting is the appetizer. The main dish seems to be missing.

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Q: Is this also true of print media?

A: It’s not as bad, but yes, I think it is true of the print media, because they’re emphasizing hot graphics and big pictures. We’re becoming USA Today-ized. And I’m not saying that they don’t have some solid news. It’s just that the marketing--especially with things that will catch the eye--sometimes seems to overshadow the news coverage. I think local coverage is going in this direction.

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Q: You are teaching a class in “Sleaze and the Media”--certainly not standard journalism school fare. Where did the idea come from?

A: First, I think I have to disagree that this isn’t a standard journalism course. I think it’s always been a critical element of a good journalism education to help students critically analyze current trends in the media. If they are going to be a part of it soon, they should think about it.

I’ve been teaching journalism ethics with another professor for about 10 years, and as we adapted the course each year we found that many of the things we wanted to talk about were ethical dilemmas based in sleaze: intimate details of people’s lives, paying for stories through checkbook journalism--practices that are traditionally done by the tabloids and are sneaking into the mainstream media.

There was another reason the class was created. The students are concerned about the kind of media that they have been working so hard to get prepared to work at. They come in and they say: “I don’t want to work in a media where I’m asked to get reaction to Marcia Clark’s new haircut. What do I do if my boss tells me to go out and interview beauticians? Can I say no? Can I say I want to go down to the City Council, or will I lose my job?”

They majored in journalism because they want to report stories that are important to people, and that they can be proud of.

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Q: We hear complaints about the “dumbing down” of news. Is that a fair description of what’s happening?

A: I’m afraid that news in general is becoming a reflection of the Generation X it’s trying to attract. Most people say Generation X is lazy, apathetic and defeatist. That’s what our news has become. This reader out there--this Generation X person--needs something new and entertaining every 20 seconds. Average reading level in the country is eighth grade. Can they understand the important stories? Do they even read at all?

If you’ve got to boost your ratings, and this is the person you’re trying to attract, you have to grab them before they flick to another channel. So the ratings geniuses have decided that you’ve got to give them more and more sensationalism to keep them with you.

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Q: Are there simply more tabloid TV shows and publications today to churn out this kind of coverage? Or are the more respected news organizations also changing what they do?

A: I think that’s the central point. There used to be a pretty clear line between the serious organizations and the tabloid shows. Now all we get is a big blur. The mainstream press is routinely reporting stories broken by the tabloids. I saw a really interesting article in your Calendar section about the “outing” of Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone. The writer was quoting somebody as saying that no mainstream media would break that story, but that there’s a race to be second in the mainstream press after the tabloid broke it.

Years ago, nobody would be second. But the fact that we didn’t break it--we just repeated it-- seems to make it ethical and acceptable. And the real problem is, people who watch this stuff think they are watching the news, and that’s scary. And it’s not just the “Hard Copies.” If you compare the content of local news--and again, I’m speaking of Los Angeles, and I’m talking TV--I think you’ll find there isn’t any difference between entertainment, tabloid and news. Local news has degenerated to the level of tabloids.

There’s just one final point I want to make here, and that is that I don’t blame the tabloids for this trend. I was on a panel with a National Enquirer reporter a couple of weeks ago, and he said: “Hey, we’ve always been tabloids. We don’t pretend to be anything else. We didn’t invite everyone else to crash our party.”

There’s a lot of party crashing going on right now.

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Q: Are the media correctly reading their audience? Are they leaders or followers in this?

A: I definitely think they’re followers. I think news directors are a bunch of lemmings in search of higher ratings. It’s a formula that came to us from the British tabloids and the formula says, according to one documentarian who analyzed it, if you get a big name and drag that person through the mud, your circulation goes up.

Most people who make news decisions these days have no courage. And it does take courage to lead and not follow. And the media was given a leadership responsibility by the framers of the First Amendment.

(The media) are not unique. Presidents are making decisions because of what pollsters tell them people want. And the media say they’re giving people what they want.

My opinion is, we might want a steady diet of Hershey bars and Snickers for breakfast, but there’s long-term consequences of a diet consisting entirely of junk food. We’re going to get scurvy.

Today, the news media is feeding us almost entirely on junk food for the brain, and I think our democratic society is suffering from intellectual scurvy as a result.

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Q: If the O. J. Simpson case had broken 10 years ago, would network TV news shows have covered it every night as they are doing now?

A: A celebrity sports superstar double-murder with sex, drugs and two innocent children would always be a huge story. I think the big difference now is with the technology--live coverage, cameras in the courtroom. You never saw that 10 years ago, and you can see that now because of satellites. Technology got us hooked on the O. J. miniseries the second he got into the white Bronco, and we’ve never left.

At a First Amendment forum put on by the CSUN journalism department, Jann Carl of KTLA said, “‘Before the O. J. trial, we were last in the daytime ratings. Now we’re first.” I’ve read that CNN (with) gavel-to-gavel coverage boosted its ratings 600%. Thirty-second ad rates were $3,000 before O. J.--now they’re $20,000. It’s estimated that Turner Broadcasting is going to make $45 million just from the O. J. trial.

This O. J. story has created an insatiable appetite to get something new every day. Well, many days there isn’t anything new. But the story is addictive, and the stations have to supply the public with their daily fix. So they have to create the news. That’s why you get Kato sightings.

And before I completely trash this coverage, I also have to say that I think that the O. J. coverage has been a phenomenal educational tool. People are discussing the criminal-justice system. People are very angry at what they’re seeing, and they never looked before. And if it does lead to reforms, that’s exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted the media to do when they created the First Amendment. So, in a very strange way, maybe the O. J. trial is a very proud moment for the press.

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Q: If the concern is the role of the press in a democratic society, isn’t it a bit undemocratic to say that people should be force-fed what they need, rather than being given what they want?

A: I think there are so many options besides force-feeding. It’s a challenge, but good journalism enlightens and informs while presenting stories in an interesting way. It’s a challenge that can and must be met.