The decline of journalism continues

I talk repeatedly of the scandalously low quality of journalism today. Here’s a sign that it’s getting worse, discussed at Powerline: CBS is in negotations to outsource some of its news gathering functions to CNN.

That’s great: CBS keeps Katie Couric and fires its reporters. There is a huge demand for primary news: raw information, carefully and reliably reported by knowledgeable and objective newspeople. The proliferation of media outlets, including the internet, has increased that demand, not reduced it. It is ironic, and unfortunate, that news organizations are increasingly willing to abandon the function for which they are uniquely qualified, primary news reporting, in favor of news presenting and commentary, fields in which they have no advantage over a host of competitors.

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A. Zarkov writes:

The decline of CBS started when corporate decided the news division had to be another profit center. The 1975 book “Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye,” by Mertz details what happened. He provides some very interesting stories about what went on inside CBS. About the same time the movie “Network” came out, and the movie felt almost like some kind of science fiction movie about a future dystopia. A few years ago, I watched Network again, and I got scared because now the movie seemed more like a docudrama, and I realized I was now living in that dystopia.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 07, 2008 11:01 PM | Send