🚀 go-pugleaf

Dave Taylor says:

> The National Broadcasting Company ultimately cares little as a commercial 
> organization about the morals and ethics of the current situation; 
> they're more concerned with people flipping to CNN instead of NBC for 
> the news, taking away their advertising revenue.  

And Dave McCrady says:

> We do what we can with the time alotted to us with a view to attracting 
> the interest of as many viewers as possible...
 
> I'm prepared to stand accused of making a mistake in judgement when it 
> comes to coverage decisions.  After all, I'm human.  But don't accuse me 
> of being biased when I decide not to send a crew to your staged event 
> because I feel there would be more interest in some other story....

In my opinion, Dave McCrady's rebuttal only reaffirms Dave Taylors
comments, though I suspect that that wasn't the intent.  The statements
"...attracting the interest of as many viewers as possible," and
"...decide not to send a crew to your staged event because I feel there
would be more interest in some other story" imply that the TV News media
are only interested in feeding news to the majority interest.  If, for
example, an overwhelming percentage of the viewer populace supports the
war, what are the chances that TV news will cover, say, a peace rally
over a support rally?  People in general like to have their opinions
reaffirmed.  Reporting on topics that reaffirm one's opinion tends to
earn loyal viewers, thereby preserving advertising dollars.

This, in my opinion, is the heart of the problem.  I can understand the
constraints of too much news to report in a short news window; However,
I do believe that there is an inherent bias towards news that matches
the majority opinion (which may or may not be morally or ethically
`correct').  I personally feel that the news media should report a cross
section of opinion, though in commercial television I can't see this
happening any time soon.  PBS's McNeil/Leiher (sp?)  News Hour comes
close, IMO, to the ideal TV news report.  They seem to cover a fairly
broad cross section of opinions on the latest news (such as the war),
and certainly their interviews and commentarys shed more light on a
topic than is possible in a 2 to 5 minute report.

In an ideal world, the demand for status quo news reporting could be
reduced by educating the masses on topics such as tolerance and
intelligent opinion making (i.e.  investigate something before forming
an opinion).  In the US, however, "My Country, Right or Wrong" and "If
You Don't Believe what I Believe, Then You're a Jerk" seems to be firmly
entrenched.

Mike