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August 2, 1997
THAT LUST FOR RATINGS We interrupt this column... ...(which had been scheduled to focus next on some positive signs in network news) because once again Americans have been distracted by negative news judgment and the industry's blind lust for ratings. I'm talking about the decision by the networks' evening news managers this past week to broadcast -- some 12 days after the event -- the recorded 911 emergency call to police by Gianni Versace's chef moments after the designer had been shot on the doorstep of his Miami Beach villa. At such a late date, so many days after the killing, this replay was not news. It was shameless exploitation. Frequently journalists, critics and viewers pose the question: when does a news story cross the line from valid coverage to tasteless sensationalism. This is one instance in which we can all emphatically answer: right here. Let's face the facts. It had been nearly two weeks since Versace's death. Five days since that of his alleged killer, Andrew Cunanan. And how many new facts did the recording of the emergency call contain? Exactly none. There was nothing new about it -- except, of course, the shock value, the base curiosity to be exploited by broadcasting the sound of a man's voice breaking with panic and anxiety; the wailing, in the background, of a woman servant overcome with horror at the brutal slaying of her boss. This was mass-eavesdropping at its very worst. In effect, the news shows were re-igniting the crudest kind of public fascination with murder to drive up ratings and revenue. It was crass entertainment for cash, which should definitely not be the motives of solid, responsible broadcast journalism. But a craving for ratings at any cost is nothing new at some companies. At NBC, for example, the network's owners and management set about the task of down-grading the News Division's traditionally high standards of taste and judgment back in 1992. With a new program called "Dateline NBC", the Entertainment Division was given sweeping new powers to control first the promotion, then the content of news programming. We proved this point early in the pre-trial testimony of witnesses in my successful lawsuit against NBC management (from which transcripts are reprinted in RISK AND REDEMPTION). My attorney asked Jeff Gaspin, at one time vice-president of prime-time programming at NBC News, if Entertainment Division executives suggested ways that "Dateline NBC" might improve ratings: "Yes", he answered -- under oath. Then this former high-ranking NBC executive put the banality of network programming psychology into sharp focus: "I think the argument from the Entertainment folks was that those shows (produced by the competition) were doing more than we were and if they could do it, why couldn't we." The rest is history. And by all reliable industry measurement, NBC News management turned more sharply into the O.J. story, among others -- and more dramatically away from genuine news like international coverage -- than any of the competition. As the evidence I report in my book reveals, the programming pyschology has gone one step further at GE-owned NBC, as if to say: "if the others can do tabloid, why can't we do even more ?" Not surprising then, that the Versace 911 recording was broadcast higher in the running order and at greater length in Nightly News with Tom Brokaw than on the competitions' programs. Not surprising, perhaps, but to those of us who remember the former Nightly News traditions of taste, restraint and responsibility, this further step down-market is truly disappointing. |
| Next time... | some examples -- hopefully -- of American news professionals who are striving to hold the line on quality.
See you then... |