Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial: 07/07/2000 NEWS FOR THE CYNICAL Ever wonder why news is entertainment and fluff? Money, baby, money. I once woke up in a front room with empty bottle of Pernod between my legs, six bullet holes in the far wall, a motorcycle leaking oil, an empty tank of nitrous oxide in the corner, and the Ride of the Valkeries playing full blast on the stereo. Everything was eventually explained except who brought a Wagner album to the party. I say this only to indicate that I once sowed enough wild oats to keep the Quaker company in business for decades. This makes my descent into old fartdom something of a surprise. But then again, I'm pushing fifty and fifty refuses to budge. The truth is revealed in many ways. Saul of Tarsus got knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus. The Bhudda sat under a tree. I listened to the radio. A CBS radio station--my employer--was interviewing Julie Chen, the chirpy newsreader from CBS TV's star-crossed Early Show. She was airily saying she saw no problem at all with playing part-time host for the latest excursion into Peeping Tom TV, Big Brother. I realized, simultaneously, that I was appalled and hopelessly out of date. I suddenly found myself with a bad case of Bruce Springsteen ethics in an N'Sync world. I was trained in journalism ethics by John Patterson, a man who lost both legs to a Japanese tank in World War II and who demanded only the best from his students, and by Fred Friendly, Edward R. Murrow's producer, the man who resigned as President of CBS News because the network refused to preempt a soap opera for important Congressional hearings into Vietnam. I've had two good friends killed and half a dozen more injured pursuing news around the world. These men and women taught me that covering the news is a honor because you're working for the people. You do your job like a professional. You don't shill commercial products. You don't put on your clown suit and dance. You tell the truth. That is so 20th Century, so five minutes ago. Blame 1968. About the time of the Tet Offensive, CBS debuted 60 Minutes. It became the first news program ever to make a profit. Before that, news was your loss leader, the prestige item that lost money but convinced people to hang around for your sitcoms. About the same time, TV consultants suggested that the perky local female anchor and the older local male anchor giggle at each other a little more, thus creating the first Eyewitness News. So news became entertainment and a profit center. And now? Your local TV news reports on every fire, murder, and dog having a dozen puppies within fifty miles. CBS's Charles Osgood happily does commercials. Ms. Chen doubles as a voyeur TV host. Disney Chairman Michael Eisner opines that ABC reporters really shouldn't do critical stories on Disney, ABC's owner. The New York Times business page reports that CBS News is willingly "demolishing" the old wall between news and entertainment to take advantage of the ratings and revenue from Survivor and Big Brother. Why? It's us. Surveys, polls, focus groups, and ratings tell programming and news hinchos what they need to know about audience attitudes. So study groups are hooked up to galvanic response meters and hired to watch tapes of potential TV anchors. If you don't sweat a little, it means the anchor isn't connecting with you. Newspapers make the type bigger, the color photos brighter, the graphs larger, and the actual news content smaller. News magazines know cleavage outsells Clinton on the cover. And it's what we want. We don't want credibility, we want entertainment. That leads to better ratings, higher circulation, increased shareholder value. If crack were legal, they'd run thirty second spots for it. After all, it's a very popular product. It's free market news. If it sells, QED it's good. Fewer and fewer people, either in the public or the industry, seem to care. An old definition of a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. If so, we're getting the news we deserve. Meantime, I need to take a break from being a cranky geezer. Now where did I leave that AARP application? Join the discussion

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