Where is the news?

I was reading an article somewhere bemoaning that we no longer have authoritative newsmen such as Walter Cronkite and universally-admired leaders such as FDR. I have already talked about the article about erosion of dignity in our world that others are worried about. That got me thinking, and the more I think the more I am convinced that people such as Cronkite & FDR still exist, or rather they were no different from the people of today. It is just that the lens through which we view them has changed.

In my opinion, it is a simple consequence of the choices we have in media, especially the 24 hour, for-profit news networks and I just don't mean Fox News. These channels are in the business of making money and will do whatever it takes to get ratings. Anger sells, so we have Fox News. Humor sells and so we have Jon Stewart and Bill Maher. This is why Simon Cowell has been a judge on American Idol for so long - people would rather have snark than reason. People would rather be entertained, even when they are being informed, and hence CNN's vanilla-news is regularly losing viewers. Have you seen Bill O'Reilly outside his show? Watch Lou Dobbs on this video. He seems like such a reasonable guy, but what happens to him on his own show? Nowadays, comedians such as Stephen Colbert aren't the only ones assuming a TV persona. The news personalities and even their shows, put on a persona to entertain. They either stoke anger against those who they don't agree with or turn them their opponents into caricatures to be laughed at. This completely de-legitimizes the other side. Bush was president to some and the village idiot to others. Obama is being painted as anything ranging for Lenin to Hitler, and people who disagree with him are swallowing it up. Same goes for the "experts" - there are too many of them to be relevant, and each side is constantly tearing down at the other. With all this name-calling, digging up of skeletons and questioning everything, no wonder it is hard to find a leader to respect. Even Gandhi would have had tough time in this media climate.

We don't have newsmen like Cronkite anymore because we really don't have news anymore. All we have is entertainment. I think our hope lies with shows such as Law & Order, or Boston Legal - that is where I see hard questions being asked and often a nuanced debate about them. Real entertainment, it looks like, might be our only hope for a reasoned debate.