Customer Reviews

Bad News: The Decline of Reporting, the Business of News, and the Danger to Us All

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Thank you, Tom Fenton, for giving our generation a public voice. All the MBA's, CPA's and LLB's have brought boardroom boredom to the small screen by confusing reporting with entertainment and bottom line statistics and you get criticized for being critical of the blunder bosses, with the publication of Bad News. They were born too late.
They will never understand the intellectual and social advantage of entering this world during the Great Depression when heroic men and women inspired great hope in what should have been the worst of times; and then, moving into the adolescent years, a part of the total commitment of the Greatest Generation of World War II. Meatless meals and ration coupons were no sacrifice while GI's we knew were dying for a proud country and twenty-one dollars a month. We had stable, supportive neighborhoods; extended families, and dependable, imaginative, friends. Additional encouragement was surely provided by the poorly paid nobility of superbly dedicated teachers. All of it grew us. There was no bottom line, no money issue beyond survival. The issue was posterity.
Tom, do you know of a front office exec that has used - or even understood - that word? It was the selfless platform that our founding fathers built a nation on. Too, the early newsmen at CBS knew they were builders for the future, not grasping bottom-liners. What a world of giants you followed, Tom, with those paragons of intellect and elocution, Edward R. Murrow's "boys" at CBS News: Eric Severeid, Charles Collingwood, William L. Shirer, Robert Trout, Ed Bliss, Bill Downs, Richard C. Hottelet, Howard K. Smith, Larry LeSueur, Winston Burdett, and Murrow's producer, Fred W. Friendly? All of patrician mien if not patrician birth, they were mesmerizers and rarely, if ever, spoke a word in error.
That you aspired to follow them does you credit, Tom, a courageous recognition of personal worth....and you certainly fit that CBS mold, now discarded in some musty attic of fading memory, an artifact that wouldn't find a buyer on eBay or a price on the Antiques Road Show.
The inspirations are long gone now, Tom, remembered and commemorated only in the minds of the elderly among us mourning the lost legacy of the great issues your words speak of in Bad News. Today's power elite believe in narrowing down the salable, simplistic, "big story" and rehashing it over and over to the exclusion of all else, even as tens of thousands dying in the darker, obscured-to-the public regions of the world are ignored. And that is as much the fault of an increasingly crass Fourth Estate, the erstwhile custodians of public conscience, as it is uncaring governments not urged into action. "It's the competition stupid!" So what if more than half the public can't find Sweden on a map. Who ever heard of Scandinavia anyway, huh!
Compare those legends of the past to today's anchors and correspondents, particularly on the cable news networks that are now threatening the very existence of network newscasts. It's a world of pretenders, despite their degrees from Harvard and Stanford. They would have been an embarrassment to `enry `iggins and my 8B3 class back in 1944! When the Elbe River and Wilkesbarre , PA, are as foreign to them as quarks and mesons are to the average major league shortstop, they commit errors that should send them to their minor leagues to report on automobile accidents and two-headed turtles. No such luck. Too many of them are paid to be personable gigglers and chatter-boxers, too good looking and too sexy (in somebody's opinion) to be given the boot. They blend perfectly with the made over, tucked and enhanced generation. Alas, these jolly anchor people are now used as occasional correspondents in more distant venues. They are save-a-buck assignees, doing in-shallow reporting in fractured English. What ever happened to incisive follow-up questions? Soft ball players!
Dare we expect something better from our news centers while the United States is listed near or at the bottom of the world's industrial nations in educational quality, in knowledge of our native language, in math skills, and even in our pitifully low contribution of foreign aid as a percentage of GNP? Small wonder that our once most-admired-nation is now out-sourcing our foreign correspondents along with everything else of value, to enrich the grand poobahs of commerce, while impoverishing the rest of us.
For every concerned Lou Dobbs or sensitive Aaron Brown on the domestic front, or a Tom Fenton (before he retired) on the foreign scene, there are a dozen silver-spoon generation entertainers. Whether in the news rooms or temporarily on the road, they are readers, essentially, who read poorly scripted news poorly, and who are indistinguishable one from the other, society's Peter Pans, that will "never grow up" as long as they are suspended like marionettes. As a lifetime news junkie, I resent it.
Thanks again for telling it the way it is, Tom; but the Dutch boy at the dike is folk fiction. I fear that you, and a few less expressive others, can't hold back the spreading wasteland. It is no longer fashionable to be smart, and compassionately concerned. And we are becoming increasingly aware of how dangerous it is to be critical. Once on "the list," you lose access.
What the hell! You're right, it's still worth the fight, Tom, or else I wouldn't have bought your book in the first place.

As a former local television news producer I have been dismayed at the lack of news to be found on network television. Foreign news may not seem interesting to many, but I never thought a news show was aired to entertain us. There are plenty of other shows that do that. I agree with the author on this point. We would never have learned much at school is all we were taught had to be entertaining as well. I don't think that adding another 1/2 hour to the evening news is too much to ask for. How else are we going to find out what is going on in the world around us.
Fenton's book is well written and easy to read and gives clear concise reasons why it matters.

I think that the problem with the news as being broadcast by television, both national and local is that we consider it to be the news. If we think of it as just another form of entertainment show featuring a small team of bubble heads with puffed up hair and the ability to giggle at each other then it all makes sense.

Last night a featured local story was that diesel fuel prices were higher here than a few hundred miles away so truckers were just buying enough fuel to get to where it was cheaper. So what.

Every day or so we hear another American has been killed in Iraq. Every week or so a thousand Americans are killed in car crashes. Not a mention. Every month 10,000 or so people die from AIDS -- old news, no one cares.

Tom Fenton's book is quite interesting from an international news point of view. It joins with a bunch of other books lamenting the dumbing down, spin controlled, if it bleeds, it leads attitude of the media. I wish I could say that I felt it would do some good.

Have a good retirement Tom.

Much of the News on TV is not "News" at all. It is entertainment and/or opinion. The political News is mostly strong highly-biased opinion. Most of the "News" available is sensational reporting that has no impact on the lives of ordinary Americans. Ordinary Americans need real News about important issues that truly effect their lives. However, most of these real issues are not sensational and sexy. Therefore, they can not sell enough product for advertisers. Advertisers almost always reach for the most sensational of issues to bring to the public. The bottom line is that there is a dumbing down of information that is provided to most TV viewers. What is called "News" is usually not News at all, but really some type of exploitive reporting designed to "capture" the viewer at an emotional & visceral level and "glue" that viewer to the TV for tens and hundreds of hours so that the TV source can pour out commercials that are in themselves often exploitive.

Media (351/1)

... to Tom Fenton on his comprehensive book as well as to the guts to finally say what needed to be said.

Mr. Fenton points at "wasted air time", "lost trust", and a "disillusioned audience". I would add, that the on-going trial reporting was "new" - a decade ago. Since then the American audience has figured out that time stands still in court rooms. In the meantime, "real", newsworthy history is developing like 9-1-1, which was planned and worked on - for years!

Americans do not trust TV news because too often these reports focus on "sensationalized" news as a way out of what is happening. Whether Scott Peterson did blink or not or Martha Stewart slept well in jail is NOT news.

I am hoping that Mr. Fenton will soon analyze how U.S. domestic news reporting (though cheaper) isn't any better.

Every day, our media misses a chance to be the watch dog, who announces developing catastrophes, foreign and domestic. E.g. In 12/04, instead of reporting that US students' math skills dropped below OECD average, something so dramatic that it might cost U.S. kids the chance for a decent paying job in the future, TV reported about Scott Peterson's case day-in-and-out.

Eventually the American public might awaken to the news that US kids' math scores are so low, respectively that other countries' children have improved their skills so much, that IT corporations don't have any other option than hiring foreign workers with better math/computer programming skills.

And, like Mr. Fenton points out so eloquently, then, again the American public might wonder "how this could happen - so suddenly"?

Mr. Fenton's book is a relief to those of us who have waited for this book and an eye opener to those who are suspecting... It is a must-read book.

Fenton may appear to be piling on as CBS is getting pounded from so many directions. However, he claims to have been working on this book last year - prior to the current lamentable condition of CBS. He states, `the timing is coincidental'.

One thing I appreciated about Fenton's approach is his emphasis on the need for good coverage of foreign events - regardless of what that might do to ratings. As an example he writes about a project he was working on to interview Osama Bin Laden, "Our bosses saw him as an obscure Arab of no interest to our viewers," Fenton writes. "More concerned with saving dollars than pursuing the story, they killed the project."

Fenton goes on to suggest it's not possible for networks to provide in-depth coverage of worldly events when they're compacted to just 18 minutes of broadcast time.

He really doesn't pull any punches when he writes, "Once you get halfway through the CBS Evening News, the rest of it you can turn off," Fenton goes on... "There's nothing there you need to know. It's an attempt to entertain people and pump up ratings. If I want entertainment, I'll watch 'The Daily Show.'"

In short, it's a hard hitting account from a long respected insider. These accusations will likely prove demoralizing for CBS.

Tom Fenton, a fixture at CBS for more than thirty years, has written a hard-hitting book about the condition of news coverage today. The condition, as he has rendered, is critical. If I could paraphrase Mr. Fenton's view of the news it would be this....the public sees just the tip of the iceberg. What he gives us is in "Bad News" is what lies underneath.

That the news is "bad" these days is shameful and the author pounces on everything from news executives who are more interested in profits to the Bush White House, where spin rules the day. While at the outset one might think that Mr. Fenton is part of the "left-wing media", let me re-assure you....he goes after the Clinton White House as well. The clincher is that Walter Cronkite doesn't watch the CBS evening news....now that tells us something.

Mr. Fenton relates where the state of the reporting of news has gone and why it has gone there. He offers pratical solutions to repair what has become the "news as entertainment" dilemma that we face today. His most important contribution is to remind us that practical reporting from foreign correspondents, an area in which he suggests the United States has failed miserably, is a key to enlightenment, enrichment and the ultimate education of American (and world) viewers.

"Bad News" is a good book. For those of us who share Mr. Fenton's views of the current state of disrepair of news presentation, this is a must read.

Tom Fenton's book is an intelligent dissection of what passes for television news. I was aware of some of the details but not to the extent as illustrated in "Bad News."

However, since reading this important book I have opened my eyes, as the saying goes and changed my viewing habits.

Being retired, my daily routine included viewing the 6PM evening news. Usually I would switch between CBS and ABC, according to the content and rarely stayed for the full program.
I was and am interested in meaningful news and not eye candy items that are of no importance in a newscast that lasts approximately seventeen minutes, mingled with disgusting Pharmaceutical commercials.

My handy remote control's mute button really comes in handy when the silly commercials break in.

I manage to get more meaningful news from the New York Times Discovery channel and from the BBC-America. However I would prefer the BBC in the UK, which is supported wholly by the owners of television sets for which there is a yearly license fee which supports BBCI & BBC2 as an independent entity. There are no commercials and no acknowledgement to corporate sponsers as is the case with Public Television in this country. I wish we had the same system here in America.

I would recommend this book by Tom Fenton to everyone who is really and truly interested in what is going on at home and abroad.

I am more critical and observant, thanks to this book.

The other evening on ABC News sporting the backdrop "World News," had very little of world news. Instead most of the short span (approx 18 minutes) was spent featuring the manipulated nonsense of Laura Bush which was written by a comedy writer and was definitely in poor taste, to say the least and it was followed by a segment showing a Mama Duck and her ducklings helped by the secret service. To add insult to one's intelligence, in closing the camera zoomed into "ABC World News Tonight."

To sum up: Network News are purveyors of repetitive and boring comercials with short breaks offering a sprinkling of contrived and manipulated news items.

Alas, where are the muckrakers of the past to open up the cans of worms, as the saying goes? That is other than Tom Fenton who has started the ball rolling.

Anyone who tries to follow news in the current atmosphere of world events knows that journalism, TV journalism in particular, is in a sad state. Retiring foreign correspondent Tom Fenton is canny to jump on the issue right now, when it's fresh in a lot of minds. He offers a lot of insights into what's wrong now. But in the end he lacks a clear vision of how the industry used to be and how it got to be where it is now.

Fenton points out that the major American TV networks have exactly one foreign bureau these days, in London. At home, "news" often consists of repackaging press releases from the government or Big Business, and abroad, news is regularly purchased wholesale from the BBC and other sources, international bureaus have withered to a few stringers, and many networks (Fox News in particular) have fallen prey to creating "spectaculars" with celebrity newsmen like Geraldo Rivera.

The author is correct to point out that this represents a major decline from the heyday of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite. News is on the skids. But as early as page twenty-seven, he reveals why things used to be better back in the Golden Age of newsgathering: the Cold War. Fear of the Soviets justified massive outlays that can't exist in the absence of a monolithic enemy. Any Noam Chomsky acolyte would point out that this means the news was NEVER really about facts, but rather about nationalist propaganda.

And Fenton is contradictory about how things stand today. For instance, he suggests that many news veterans are still stuck in a Vietnam-era liberal mindset and that's why they're eager to let slide on hard news gathering, tossing softballs to world leaders like President Bush and Vladimir Putin. Let me repeat that for you: he thinks that it is old-line leftism that is causing the news to give a free pass to right-wing nationalists like Bush and Putin. Need I explain why this is a ridiculous notion?

Still, there are a lot of ways Fenton is correct. Because newsgathering is toothless today, we have no context to understand forces like Islamist terror and Russian neocolonialism. Frivolous attitudes toward Chinese industrial expansionism and Venezuelan saber-rattling leave the average American unequipped to prepare for what may be our next big national struggle. And our highly overpaid news anchors have a moral responsibility to push their correspondents and stringers for a higher standard of reportage.

Even the solutions Fenton suggests are valid. An hour-long prime-time news show every night would be a good idea, and the success of shows like Dateline and 60 Minutes proves that people would watch them. An FCC willing to enforce the networks' responsibility to the public good would bring news in line with what it should be, and what we certainly need, to grasp our place in the world.

For all this good, Fenton's appeal to false nostalgia and his oddly contradictory view of how things are right now undermines how we see and understand his arguments. (And all this is not helped by odd typographical quirks that suggest the publisher was in a real hurry to get the book out and move on. I think we should expect higher quality from a HarperCollins imprint.)

Fenton is canny to spot a real need and throw his weight behind solutions. And with a little time and consideration, I suspect this book could have been a major contribution to real improvements in the state of affairs. But as it is it's a near miss, a selectively useful and alternately odd book that clouds the issues as much as it clarifies them. If you want to participate in the push for a more responsible press, this book is not the one for you.

We learn from this critique of the news media that Cronkite no longer watches the evening news. Surprise? Fenton's acute, but not shrill, expose of the decline and continuing fall of televised non-news has the feel of one who knows the ropes and the inside dry-rot that set in during the nineties: from public service to corporate cash cow operations. It is a peculiar version of censorship amidst the paeans on the free press and the American way. We are rapidly becoming a completely uninformed public, awash in streaming media dayglow, it had best not the final verdict