Fake News

Perhaps it is the aging process but I find myself becoming more aware of little white (or perhaps grey) lies creeping into TV commercials.  My main gripe relates to commercials masking as news.  I’m not talking about those late night 30 minute infomercials where a studio audience is videotaped as they are mesmerized by a digital juice maker or turbo-charged vacuum cleaner that can suck the air out of the Goodyear Blimp.  Those TV shows are blatant and anyone thinking they are watching a real objective news show may have had that vacuum connected to their brain.

The ones that get my attention and ire are the commercials running adjacent to local news shows.  I am sure you have seen them.  One is set up as a news interview with a “host” and “guest” seated in chairs. They are in a “serious” discussion about the increased number of home break-ins and how people are “really worried.”  The “guest” thanks the “host” for inviting him and goes on to make a one-time offer to install a security system.  He goes on to discuss how he wants everyone to feel safe.

Another spot running often is for a new ointment that will make you look younger instantaneously.  The spot begins with a young lady standing on a news set.  She begins with the line, “Welcome back…” as to infer that we are now back to the news reports.

Then there is the guy who wants you to be among the first 50 callers in the next 30 minutes.  There is a little count-down clock on the screen and the spots run three or four times within the news show.  The guy even remarks that he is getting lots of calls.  How someone who is on videotape knows that calls are coming in is truly remarkable.

I remember when I was on TV doing pitches for public TV and the phones were not ringing.  Some of the crew suggested that we insert taped phone rings in order to add excitement.  We never did since we were live and we wanted to tell the truth.  The same held true during the annual auction.  If the phones did not ring, so be it.

It is bad enough that the local and national news shows often plug some upcoming entertainment special that will be on the station later that evening.  The fake roof fixers, walk-in tub installers and alarm salesmen posing as news reporters are just wrong. Just how wrong is it?  Here is what the FCC Rules require.

§ 73.1208Broadcast of taped, filmed, or recorded material.(a) Any taped, filmed or recorded program material in which time is of special significance, or by which an affirmative attempt is made to create the impression that it is occurring simultaneously with the broadcast, shall be announced at the beginning as taped, filmed or recorded. The language of the announcement shall be clear and in terms commonly understood by the public. For television stations, the announcement may be made visually or aurally.

Is TV News a Dinosaur?

I have always been a news junkie.  I regularly read, albeit on line, two newspapers most every day, drive to and from work listening to Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and, with my wife, watch the TV evening news, usually while washing dishes.  Recently I have found the latter less than informative. This got me to thinking that the TV Network news model is really obsolete and nobody bothered to tell the networks.

All the commercial TV networks have similar formats and cover about the same content.  Most often that content consist of information that I already know having learned it from non-stop sources throughout the day.  So any given evening about 90% of the reporting is not news to me and the remaining 10% of little or no interest.  I really don’t care how much money Kim Kardashian was paid for her Super Bowl commercial.  That report belongs in Entertainment Tonight not in David Muir’s news script. 

Perhaps it is my advancing age that has changed me.  But I would rather believe that the format for these programs is no longer relevant to most viewers. The news program model we have today goes back to the early 50’s, with programs like the Camel Caravan of News, a 15-minute summary of the day’s happenings hosted by John Cameron Swayze. 

That was a much different time when an important happening in the next city might take hours to be reported locally and news events around the world might be unknown for days or even weeks.  Reporting the news was very expensive and time consuming.  Even in my early years in TV, the equipment was expensive and complex.  The process of capturing, editing and transmitting news stories was mostly vested in the hands of a few at TV stations and networks.

How things have changed as most anyone with a mobile phone has the capacity to record and transmit video from most anywhere.  So rather than having to wait till 6:00 PM to see the 13 inches of snow on the Harrison streets, before the last flake dropped, I could view on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram more snow that I care to see.  On a more serious note, we all saw first-hand the impact of social media during the Arab Spring.

Seems to me that the news operations need a major change in format and emphasis to serve changing audience needs.  That audience has more options for getting late breaking events.  What is lacking is a concentration on the “Why.”   Most vexing issues today are very complex.  If they were simple, we would have speedy resolution.  It seems to me that the role of news programs in today’s world is to help us understand what we see and hear and not to provide a litany of short vignettes and reports telling us things we already know.

This kind of news reporting is hard.  It is difficult to explain the complex without losing the audience.  But it is precisely what is needed and what is not now being provided.  Perhaps the shrinking audiences for these programs will compel change for the better or perhaps we will see more of a nightly caravan of trivia.

If the news programs do go away, how will I keep up with all these new drugs that I need to ask my doctor about? 

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