Our business

[SF_Express]

There are a lot of good threads here right now, so I probably should save this, but there's a timely entry to discussion: 10 days or so ago, sitting in a sports/bar restaurant in which every local station -- on huge hi-def TVS -- was full into Anna Nicole Smith, I actually was feeling pretty depressed about the news business -- to the point that the bartender actually asked if something was bothering me.

I didn't start a thread about it, but along comes Carl Hiaasen's column today:

http://www.miamiherald.com/424/story/29482.html

I'm on the Web now, but have a long print background. June will be my 30th anniversary in the biz as a full-timer.

Part of me kind of says, "Oh, well." And part of me even says, "Boy, if they think WE were the toy department ..."

But part of me sees the whole Anna Nicole thing and just wonders if we've gone over some kind of edge -- as Hiassen does.

 

[Riddick]

I think that Anna Nicole crap bothered all of us. I coldn't believe that is SHARED coverage on CNN with the Bluffton baseball team crash. Unbelievable.

 

[jgmacg]

But part of me sees the whole Anna Nicole thing and just wonders if we've gone over some kind of edge -- as Hiassen does.

OJ took us over the precipice thirteen years ago. Since then it's only been the fall, and the things we see, like Paris and Britney and Jon Benet and Anna Nicole, as we gather speed on the way down.

Race to the bottom? Maybe there is no bottom.

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

Carl Hiassen is such a good writer.

I can only hope he puts this experience into a new novel.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

When I clicked on the "show unread posts since last visit" link, here's the first two thread titles I saw:

Our Business
Should it be THIS bad?

That pretty well trumps anything I'd come up with.

 

[BYH]

But part of me sees the whole Anna Nicole thing and just wonders if we've gone over some kind of edge -- as Hiassen does.

OJ took us over the precipice thirteen years ago. Since then it's only been the fall, and the things we see, like Paris and Britney and Jon Benet and Anna Nicole, as we gather speed on the way down.

Race to the bottom? Maybe there is no bottom.

Perfectly said.

Anna Nicole didn't start this, and when Britney finally kicks it, coverage of her death will make Anna Nicole look as somber as Watergate.

 

[alleyallen]

We recognize as a whole the kind of trouble the business in, and we're seeing it's a mixture of faults ... the public and the media's.

So now the question is how do you fix the problem?

 

[kleeda]

I was at a newspaper run by a corporation Hiaasen himself loathed when I thought I witnessed the death of solid journalism. Too much to detail here, but we have been headed down this path awhile. I am happy I cover sports and I doubt I will ever go back into "news."

 

[alleyallen]

I was at a newspaper run by a corporation Hiaasen himself loathed when I thought I witnessed the death of solid journalism. Too much to detail here, but we have been headed down this path awhile. I am happy I cover sports and I doubt I will ever go back into "news."

The problem is, it's infecting sports, now, too. As the lines become more and more blurred, our perception of "news" will become less clear.

 

[kleeda]

So now the question is how do you fix the problem?

Tell shareholders to F off and be happy with five percent profits.

 

[SF_Express]

By the way, as kind of an aside: During the whole cable scramble over Anna Nicole, one of the networks had one of those standing graphics kind of things, and this was the text:

Anna Nicole Smith: America's Rose

America's Rose!! :

 

[Mystery_Meat]

By the way, as kind of an aside: During the whole cable scramble over Anna Nicole, one of the networks had one of those standing graphics kind of things, and this was the text:

Anna Nicole Smith: America's Rose

America's Rose!! :

One of the established posters has something in his siggy busting on that.

Could be worse. Could be "America's Sweetheart" *ahem* JonBenet Ramsey.

This isn't Ramsey bad. At least Anna Nicole and Britney are legal. The only demo that benefitted from the JonBenet coverage was the pedophile ones.

 

[kleeda]

I was at a newspaper run by a corporation Hiaasen himself loathed when I thought I witnessed the death of solid journalism. Too much to detail here, but we have been headed down this path awhile. I am happy I cover sports and I doubt I will ever go back into "news."

The problem is, it's infecting sports, now, too. As the lines become more and more blurred, our perception of "news" will become less clear.

Had a tidy solution at my last newspaper that the news editors bought into.
Anything about the Kobe Bryant in Colorado case that affected his ON-court status made it in the sports pages. Anything about the case that affected his IN-court status made it into the news section. Amazing how few stories ended up in sports.

 

[shockey]

i've never been prouder to be part of the toy dept. we're pretty much the same. news side? eh, not so much.

 

[SF_Express]

I was at a newspaper run by a corporation Hiaasen himself loathed when I thought I witnessed the death of solid journalism. Too much to detail here, but we have been headed down this path awhile. I am happy I cover sports and I doubt I will ever go back into "news."

The problem is, it's infecting sports, now, too. As the lines become more and more blurred, our perception of "news" will become less clear.

Had a tidy solution at my last newspaper that the news editors bought into.
Anything about the Kobe Bryant in Colorado case that affected his ON-court status made it in the sports pages. Anything about the case that affected his IN-court status made it into the news section. Amazing how few stories ended up in sports.

Actually, didn't some paper like Aspen or something decide it wasn't going to print anything about the Kobe case until it was resolved?

It'd be interesting if a paper or network tried to do that on another big story -- the problem is, if readers want it, is that really serving them?

 

[alleyallen]

I was at a newspaper run by a corporation Hiaasen himself loathed when I thought I witnessed the death of solid journalism. Too much to detail here, but we have been headed down this path awhile. I am happy I cover sports and I doubt I will ever go back into "news."

The problem is, it's infecting sports, now, too. As the lines become more and more blurred, our perception of "news" will become less clear.

Had a tidy solution at my last newspaper that the news editors bought into.
Anything about the Kobe Bryant in Colorado case that affected his ON-court status made it in the sports pages. Anything about the case that affected his IN-court status made it into the news section. Amazing how few stories ended up in sports.

Actually, didn't some paper like Aspen or something decide it wasn't going to print anything about the Kobe case until it was resolved?

It'd be interesting if a paper or network tried to do that on another big story -- the problem is, if readers want it, is that really serving them?

Don't know if anyone remembered, but my last newspaper made headlines when we refused to run a single story about the possible baseball lockout (or strike...can't remember, it was 2002 or 2003) until both the owners and players got their crap in gear.

 

[Lugnuts]

I think it all goes back to Wall Street. Pressures for profits have taken an ugly toll, just as they have in the newspaper biz. Believe me, most of the folks at the TV networks don't want to focus on this stuff. They want to focus on what they feel is important, legitimate news. But Wall Street dictates now, and Wall Street won't have it.

All that said, there are 3 things I think are newsworthy about Anna Nicole:

1) That she died.
2) How she died.
3) That the baby will be cared for.

 

[Bob Cook]

I'll take a different view -- that the reason for saturation coverage was because the 24-hour news networks (who were leading the charge) knew this was ratings gold. It isn't about Wall Street--it's about attracting an audience. I don't feel quite so despondent, though, because the same cornucopia of media choice that has panicked news networks doing wall-to-wall Anna coverage also has plenty of spaces where one can go to get coverage on something else.

And the "we could spend this money in Darfur" argument is a bit of a straw man. We could cut all the sports departments, too, and spend the money in Darfur. After all, isn't a humanitarian crisis far more important than steroidal freaks and pituitary cases who can manipulate some sort of orb?

 

[SF_Express]

And, Bob, that's the thing. You're right: It's hard for sports people to criticize saturation entertainment coverage -- even coverage as unseemly as this. It's all entertainment, one way or another. And we're the business that does -- and was proud of it, by the way -- 24-page special sections on a single football game.

 

[Bob Cook]

And, Bob, that's the thing. You're right: It's hard for sports people to criticize saturation entertainment coverage -- even coverage as unseemly as this. It's all entertainment, one way or another. And we're the business that does -- and was proud of it, by the way -- 24-page special sections on a single football game.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0305/p09s01-coop.html

This seems germaine to the conversation.