Rosenstiel laments the decline of broadcast TV

COMMENTARY | September 12, 2004

Media analyst Tom Rosenstiel, citing network TV's poor coverage of the national political conventions, says that "after this summer, Americans will no longer see network news in quite the same way. The network owners may not fully understand this. Even if they do, there is little evidence that they care."

In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post on Sept. 12, Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, declares the end of an era as viewers move from broadcast TV to cable.

Gone, he writes, "is the chance to double-check, to rewrite, to edit -- and often to even report. What is lost with the passing of network TV, in other words, is the journalism of verification. It is gradually yielding place to a journalism of assertion."

"Consider," Rosenstiel writes: "The rise of network television news was arguably the most important development in American politics in the latter half of the 20th century. The arrival of news divisions in the 1950s and '60s meant that for the first time citizens could regularly see events for themselves. Networks were consequential -- and serious in purpose. While newspaper people are loath to admit it, TV journalism at its best could tell stories more powerfully than print."

With their decision "to forgo any meaningful coverage of the conventions, the networks have signified — despite whatever rhetoric they offer — that the prestige and influence of their news divisions no longer matter much to them."

See the Washington Post for Rosenstiel's full op-ed piece.

Comments

Jump to bottom of list