"Bad News"
by Vorfeed

According to a 2004 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, an astounding eighty-six percent of national journalists surveyed believe that news today tends to avoid complex issues. In addition, fifty-six percent believe that journalists as a whole are too timid, avoiding asking important questions of government officials and businesspeople (1).

These results mirror a national trend toward watered-down, sensational news, affecting nearly all news media.

According to a University of Chicago study, in 1970, seventy percent of Americans read a newspaper on a daily basis, but that number dropped to forty percent by 2000 (2). Many will be quick to blame this startling statistic on the increasingly busy lifestyles of Americans, and while this most likely plays some part in the decline, it is also likely that the decline in the quality of newspapers plays a factor as well. Instead of being owned by local families as they were in the early Twentieth Century, many newspapers are today owned by large corporations, meaning the management and funds come from, in many cases, cities far away from a newspaper's audience; as a result, good news is sacrified in exchange for profits. Most newspapers today do not feature very much national news, and even less news from abroad, meaning the public is less informed and will potentially make unfounded decisions with its wallets and at the ballot box (3).

For local news, people in Post Falls have two major newspapers and three major television networks from which to choose. While the television networks are, for the most part, the same when it comes to quality (average for local television news- that is, good video takes priority over real news (3)), the two newspapers are vastly different in quality. While The Spokesman-Review is an excellent example of a newspaper, including a good amount of local, national, and foreign news in addition to features and sports, The Coeur d'Alene/Post Falls Press is severely lacking when it comes to hard news, especially in the national and foreign departments.

To examine national television news, one must first start with the three major broadcast networks, CBS, ABC, and NBC. The weekday morning programs on these networks are tabloids at best. They spend less than five minutes reading the morning's major headlines before moving on to several more hours' worth of fluff, which includes, but is by no means limited to, cooking segments, musical performances, celebrity interviews, and interviews with celebrity experts. Do not be fooled; these shows are not news. Yes, they do very briefly touch on a handful of important stories, but most of the "news" they purport to report consists of sensationalized video and audio, interviews with people involved in heartbreaking or heartwarming yet otherwise insignificant events, and outright gossip.

As for the nightly news that is broadcast at, in our area, 5:30pm each evening on these three networks, they could do much better. Even in the 1960's and 70's, when the nightly news featured more international and governmental news than today, Walter Cronkite emphasized that his nightly news show was "essentially a headline service attempting to give our audience an overview of the day, leaning . . . on the hope that we would inspire them to consult their newspapers for fuller details" (3). Reuven Frank, president of NBC News during the late 60's and early 70's, said that television news was meant to give the impression that audiences were present at exciting events; unfortunately, this does not necessarily equate with providing relevant news and information. The nightly news programs of today spend almost as much time on feature stories- that is, two-to-five minute segments on one particular subject such as health or car safety -as on actual news. Even then, the news is insubstantial. According to The News About the News, a book by Leonard Downie Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser of The Washington Post, " A typical network evening news show now mentions from half a dozen to fifteen or so different subjects, some in just a sentence, whereas a good newspaper has scores of different news items every day. A big story on television might get two minutes, or about 400 words. The Los Angeles Times coverage of the same big story could easily total 2,000 words" (3).

However, how much in-depth reporting can be fit into one half-hour program? This is where twenty-four-hour cable news networks, a fairly recent addition the news scene, have missed a crucial opportunity. With so much time devoted to news, would it not be reasonable to expect a fair amount of original, investigative news? Unfortunately, this is hardly the case. Turn to any twenty-four-hour news channel at any given time of the day and one will find all the networks think he or she needs to know about celebrity court trials or what the President has to say about his new pet project. Instead of offering objective, informative news on issues and events that affect people's lives, viewers of cable news channels are exposed to a constant cycle of the same opinion segments and sound bytes. Do Scott Peterson's court proceedings really affect anyone but the small group of people directly involved? Does a five-second clip of President Bush saying that Social Security needs to be fixed provide any insight as to the positives or negatives of his proposals?

The media's lack of elaboration on complex issues and events hurts the people affected by those issues and events. When John Kerry was running for President, the media gratuitously aired a clip less than ten seconds long of Kerry stating his seemingly contradictory voting record on funding for the Iraq war. With Bush's margin of victory in the 2004 election as small as it was, the repeated playing of this clip may very well have been responsible for Kerry's defeat. Instead of playing the clip in context, or at least explaining to viewers why Kerry said he voted as he did, the media pandered to the "everything must be in terms of black-and-white" crowd and only aired this one statement.

Yet another example of this neglect is much more serious than an election. In Sudan and Congo, and previously in Rwanda, where millions are suffering as a result of ethnic genocide and displacement, what could be potential help is not reaching the victims. Instead of explaining in detail what is happening in the region, the media concentrates on trivialities like celebrity trials and fashion. If more people in the United States knew of what is happening, more pressure would be put on Congress and the President to provide aid and assistance to Africa and perhaps a solution would come sooner.

How does this relate to Post Falls High School? Our school paper, The Trojan Times, has repeatedly ignored controversial yet important issues facing our school. In addition, it fails to do much original investigating and produce truly informative articles. While much of this is due to guidelines put in place by the school district and school administration, the Journalism class could do more to improve the newspaper. Where was The Trojan Times when Ryan Myers dropped out? What about when a group of seniors was discovered to have performed their Homecoming lip sync while intoxicated? Do not misunderstand the motives behind these questions- It is not the paper's job to support or condemn any person involved in these events. The paper's job is to objectively report on important issues so that the student body is informed of what is going on at school. The administration may be concerned about revealing disciplinary measures or other confidential information, but this by no means has to be disclosed to the public to make a quality, informative article. Students deserve to hear the basics about an event or issue from a reliable source as opposed to from unreliable word-of-mouth. Obtaining the unbiased truth allows people to make their own judgements, and if the end judgement is harsh, then so be it.

But, some may argue, Post Falls Uncensored does not offer purely objective reporting, and hence, the students behind it are hypocrites. However, PFU does not claim to be an objective source, and disclaimers displayed prominently on the site warn readers of this. PFU is what is called advocacy journalism, and even when articles are written in third-person, there is, to be blunt, bias involved. If this were the official school website or newspaper, students here would write objectively, but that is not our job. Our job, or more accurately, our hobby, is to inform students and the public of what is going on in our school while writing on behalf of many students who feel their voices are not adequately heard. If people want strictly objective news about our school, it should be taken up with the Journalism class and advisor and/or the school administration, not the staff of Post Falls Uncensored.

Sources
1) http://www.stateofthenewsmedia.org/journalist_survey_prc.asp
2) http://www.naa.org/artpage.cfm?aid=6144
3) Downie, Leonard Jr. and Robert G. Kaiser. The News About the News. New York: Vintage Books, 2002.

Resources for Good News
National Public Radio (91.1 FM locally)
British Broadcasting Corporation
Google News
The Spokesman-Review (and especially its print edition)
The Sentinel (North Idaho College newspaper)
BBC World News, PBS (KSPS 7 locally), 5-5:30 weeknights
The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, 6-7 weeknights