ON THE LITERARY TRAIL,
IN SEARCH OF "REAL" NEWS...
I'm in Los Angeles, Santa Monica to be exact...
...helping the team at Skywriter Inc. to distribute my book, RISK AND REDEMPTION, across the United States.
One thing strikes me the moment I set foot in the U.S. -- the scarcity of genuine international news on TV. Aside from CNN and the occasional story on the other networks, Americans see very little of the world around them. That's unhealthy, I'd say, since anyone who travels and works abroad can tell you this is not the time for communities in North America to be blind and deaf to the many new challenges taking shape out there, challenges that will deeply affect business and family life right here at home.
Another thing that never fails to impress me is that so many Americans know full well they're missing out on something precious. A couple of days back, for instance, I was invited to talk about my account of the network news wars on a couple of L.A.'s outstanding open-line shows.
During Michael Jackson's top-rated program on KABC radio and Xavier Santana's bilingual show on KSTV, people called in to say that they're sick and tired of network bosses dishing out synthetic, entertainment-oriented fluff in the guise of news. I couldn't agree more. Because when you see less genuine foreign news reporting it means that too many of my colleagues overseas are off the air or out of work -- or both.
That's a waste, since there's still a fine array of talented professionals working for you, the viewing public, in the foreign bureaus of the big U.S. broadcast networks. The problem, of course, is the corporate management cultures that control some of those networks--and shut down too many news bureaus. In RISK AND REDEMPTION, I tell the story of what happened when a huge defence contractor, General Electric, dictated that the news division of it's National Broadcasting Company subsidiary would be placed under the commercial control of NBC's Entertainment Division in Burbank. As my lawyers and I proved before the U.S. courts, hard international news was out, Amy Fisher and O.J. were in -- throughout the NBC News schedule. Good journalism was sacrificed in the quest for higher ratings and bigger profits.
In the days ahead, I'll keep you up to date with the debate taking shape over the deterioration of television news in America, and what some of the brightest and most determined journalists and news consumers are doing to help us get back to a more balanced programming agenda.