Viewer Discretion Advised

How to Watch TV News. That’s the title of an old gem (1992) by Neil Postman and Steve Powers I just finished reading. In light of their wonderful analysis and advice, and since most of us get our political news from the tube, I thought it deserved an article.

Building on the thesis Postman developed in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, the authors argue that commercial television is inherently ill-equipped to deliver the context and depth necessary to adequately inform citizens of a democracy. The main lesson: if you’re relying solely on television for your news, you’re in trouble!

It’s a simple argument: news shows are funded by advertisers; advertisers want to reach as many viewers as possible; most viewers lack the attention span and patience to sit through the detailed technical explanations and historical context important issues require; so producers sensationalize the banal and trivialize the important. Local shows showcase fires, car crashes and weather, rather than explaining the complexities of proposed budgets or amendments. And while the national news may tackle a little more important issues—especially 24/7 news channels—even with all that time, they can’t afford to go into too much detail, lest Joe Sixpack flip over to a football game and ruin their Neilsen rating. 

That’s why most debate “analysis” focuses on wardrobe choice or verbal slips or whose eyes rolled at the wrong moment. You won’t find any of that here. Well, not that often anyway. (“The OTHER Ditsy Vice Candidate” was one exception I couldn’t resist.)

What’s a viewer to do? In the last chapter Postman and Powers offer 8 concrete steps:

1. Decide for yourself what’s important—don’t leave it to the pundits to define what constitutes the news of the day

2. Remember that news shows are still “shows”—first and foremost entertainment

3. Never underestimate the power of commercials—view commercials cautiously and objectively, read the fine print, keep the physical product and its brand image separate in your head, and resist the temptation to go along for the advertisement’s ride

4. Investigate the financial and political interests of those who run TV stations—if GE owns NBC, can we trust NBC to honestly investigate GE products? And if GE profits from a particular military operation, or a financial bailout…

5. Pay special attention to the language of newscasts—slanted language can easily frame an issue—be aware of euphemisms and dysphemisms  where neutral language would do

6. Cut your TV news consumption by 1/3—that’s gonna be tough for most of us, but the authors insist that too much TV news leads to a warped, overly pessimistic worldview (and they’re probably right)

7. Cut the opinions you feel obligated to have by 1/3—if you don’t know enough about global warming to make an educated judgment, and don’t have the time or inclination to learn, admitting as much is better than clinging to a hollow opinion based on sound bites from talking heads

8. Do whatever you can to get schools interested in teaching children how to watch a TV news show—many schools have already thrown out Channel One (I remember the fluffy reporting and extreme Mountain Dew ads quite well), but for those that haven’t, turn those 12-minute consumerist indoctrination sessions into full-blown media analyses 

Expanding a bit:

• On #3, as Leslie Savan so eloquently put it in The Sponsored Life, the real product television is selling—even television news—is the viewer. Advertisers capture and sensationalize our everyday experiences, then return them with a product attached. Those fancy sets don’t pay for themselves, and your cable bill certainly isn’t getting the job done.

• On #4, there’s always the vested interests to worry about, so let’s not forget Chomsky and Herman’s Manufacturing Consent. (Here’s the book on Amazon, and here’s the classic documentary on google video.)  Producers are careful to not piss off their sponsors, which sometimes skews journalistic integrity—makes investigative journalism a little softer than we expect. Beyond specific conflicts of interest, the capitlaist class runs the whole darn thing (and now I’m sounding a little paranoid communist—Chomsky tends to do that to me), effectively blocking serious discussion of policies contrary to their narrow interests. But if Postman’s correct, little serious coverage is given to anything of importance at all!

• And implied throughout is the call to read some books, for goodness’ sake! 

Finally, remember that all of the above applies to print, radio and online news, so keep your guard up—even when visiting SocratesVotes.

Update Nov 7, 08: Dan Rather gets to the root of Postman’s complaints