AN "INCREDIBLE" LACK OF CREDIBILITY
This week in Los Angeles and Washington D.C. ...
...I've had two opportunities to meet RISK AND REDEMPTION readers at bookstore signings. And at both Dutton's in Brentwood and BARNES & NOBLE's Georgetown store, people turned out to ask questions about the theme at the center of my book: the virtual disappearance of international news reports from U.S. network television.
I explained that during my time at NBC News, managers appointed by the General Electric Company announced that Americans aren't sufficiently interested in global events to justify foreign coverage. So they slashed world news from their agenda, and drove up profits by concentrating their efforts -- and the public's attention -- on soft or sensational stories formatted for prime time. As the evidence compiled in RISK AND REDEMPTION shows, this was an aggressive, carefully planned marketing exercise. But now it's time to reflect: is it "mission accomplished" at GE's headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza ?
In a profit sense, yes. And it's also true that a convenient by-product of the hyper-commercializing of NBC's News Division is that management has one less potential adversary in any future controversies involving GE's corporate empire. Journalists at NBC now operate in such narrow editorial confines -- only stories judged as revenue spinners by the Entertainment Division's ratings czars are programmed at any length or frequency -- that the question of how vigorously NBC News could dig into its parent company's affairs has become a dead issue. GE Chairman Jack Welch has tamed the division's management.
But credibility ? On this front, the News Division suffers badly. The latest example: NBC management's decision to dump out of its promise to broadcast 90 minutes live from Hong Kong on the July 1st handover from British to Chinese rule. As CBS and ABC aired extended live coverage, Tom Brokaw was limited to a single three minute cut-in to NBC's coverage of a lacklustre tennis match from Wimbledon. The Hong Kong story was relegated to the electronic back-pages -- GE's CNBC and MSNBC cable services.
The programming switch was greeted by scathing commentary in America's leading newspapers. NBC News staffers, some from the same team that won an Emmy for reporting the Tienanman Square massacre eight years ago, had once again been let down by their management. What could have been a proud moment in presenting the biggest international story of the day instead caused only embarrassment -- in front of the competition, and in the eyes of the industry.
It's doubtful, though, that top executives of GE and NBC are squirming in their seats at Wimbledon, where limousines, parties and premium seats are customary annual perks for management. It's a world away from the cares of global news and global news responsibility. At GE's NBC, those concerns have been left to others.
As I've discovered in my travels with RISK AND REDEMPTION, this cynical, profit-first mentality poses a very real threat to the American broadcast news industry. A listener to a recent radio interview summed it up in this fax to the station: "Unfortunately, our news media is in danger of losing something difficult to get back -- integrity and trust -- in exchange for ratings and dollars."
It's a dark prophecy, but this message and the many others like it that I've received are not entirely bad news for American journalists. They prove that the audience is watching and listening. And that many viewers are eager to help professional reporters regain some measure of influence in how their programs are made and broadcast.