TV News

I really can't adquately express my disdain for network TV news. Before working at a newspaper, I thought it was just pointless fluff that existed as a relic from a previous time. At best, it was mindnumbing, and at worst it made (usually middle aged) people mistakenly think they are informed.

But since working for a newspaper I've seen an even worse side of the TV news business. After a recent rape hearing, camera's chased down the victim and stuck lights and lenses in her face. They literally chased her and her family into an elevator, despite the fact that new organizations pretty much all have a policy against revealing the identity of sex crime victims.

Earlier this week, I also saw a man get some tragic news (possibly that a family member died in a fire, though I was out of earshot). The man nearly collapsed on the ground with sorrow, and was sobbing uncontrollably. And of course, a TV camera man ran over with a huge light and got in the guy's face.

Of course, not every TV camera man is bad (I knew a cool one not too long ago), but I can't say I've ever seen a network news broadcast that wasn't pointless. And now, I can add insensitivity to the idiotic things TV news does.

(I should mention though that I'm talking exclusively about network affiliates of ABC, NBC, Fox, etc. not CNN and MSNBC.)

Hard News/Soft News

Ever since I graduated in August my approach to finding jobs has been a bit atypical; I figured I didn’t want to do a dead-end job, so I just started emailing places I liked asking if I could come work for them.  Though this process has yet to land me a job (or even a volunteer experience, as I also told companies I’d work for free), it did get me one interview. 

 

The interview I landed was with KUER in Salt Lake City for the position of intern-reporter.  However, having essentially no journalism experience I didn’t get this position.  Still, the interview was a good experience; I got to meet Jennifer Napier-Pearce (she interviewed me) and see the studio where Radio West is made (both of which experiences are things I would have driven to Salt Lake to do even if I wasn’t trying to get a job). 

 

This interview was definitely a learning experience for me, but one part of the exchange in particular stands out.  Ms. Pearce asked me what sorts of stories I’d be most interested in covering.  I wanted to say, “ANYTHING BECAUSE BEING A REPORTER WOULD BE AWESOME AND I’M DESPERATE TO GET A JOB IN JOURNALISM” (in caps because I would have been yelling it).  I actually said, “I’d be interested in covering a variety of topics, though right now I’m probably best equipped to cover arts and culture….”

 

In retrospect my answer was definitely not what KUER needed, which fact was demonstrated by Ms. Pearce’s answer: “…we cover more hard news than soft news” (that’s not word for word, but you get the gist).  I probably visibly spaced out at that moment because I immediately began mentally analyzing the distinction between these two genres of journalism.  What exactly makes something “hard” or “soft” for example?  Who determines that?  Just how aware are journalists of the (subjective) hierarchies they create when lumping some event into these categories? 

 

Since then I’ve thought a lot about this hard news/soft news distinction.  On the surface, this is a fairly obvious dichotomy.  For example crime rates, politics, or scientific discoveries are easily classifiable as hard news.  On the other hand, Paris Hilton’s latest hijinks are clearly less important.  Said another way, some stories impact public wellbeing (hard news) and others merely boost ratings, provide entertainment, or move newspapers (soft news).  

 

Still, that distinction places a lot of responsibility on the journalist and the categories do blur.  Murders and petty crimes might have a correlation, for example, blurring the line between important and less-important stories.  Or, a newspaper might discover that reporting on murders results in higher sales, so the editor chooses to disproportionately report on violence, blurring the line between public well being and sensation.  In any case, hard news and soft news aren’t black and white categories and a journalist wouldn’t get anything done if she or he didn’t make some decisions about what to report. 

 

Which is all fair enough; journalists obviously have to choose between legitimacy and sensationalism.  Yet on a deeper level these decisions perhaps need reevaluation.  For example, though most people would probably agree that stories about Paris Hilton are less important than stories about Barack Obama, that doesn’t nessecarily have to be the case.  We as a society could decide that the most important value we share is our love of pop culture (and indeed the advent of infotainment suggests that we might).  However, what if pop culture actually was more important.  Imagine, for example, that someone started a religion that worshipped celebrities.  Imagine we all belonged to that religion and truly believed in it.  Suddenly the actions of people like Paris Hilton would mean something very different.  If that’s too far-fetched (it shouldn’t be, really) imagine if Jesus Christ came back to earth as per the beliefs of most Christian denominations.  He’d certainly be a celebrity worthy of biographical and human interest stories, but he’d also probably be fair game as hard news (especially if he did all that stuff the Bible says he’ll do). 

 

My point is that the classification of certain stories as “soft news” or infotainment actually devalues things that might have immense cultural significance.  While the Paris Hilton and Jesus Christ examples are extreme ones that I’m using rhetorically here, the issue does raise questions about the arts, music, cinema and all those things that don’t create new laws or inventions, but nevertheless inflect the way people behave (more than most hard news topics too).  Where do these things rank compared to something like a state legislature, which is surely hard news but much less present in people’s lives than someone like Angelina Jolie?  In other words, are arts and culture important? Are they hard news?  Why?    

 

In the end I largely agree with the distinctions between hard news and soft news (though I can’t help but wonder why I was told that KUER reports on hard news right after I had said I wanted to report on the arts).  Still, simply because something seems to work doesn’t mean we should take it for granted.  Hard news may be hard for a reason, but I still think it’s worth asking why it is.