The massive failure of America's news media is a story that news organizations refuse to examine, says prize-winning former network TV news and print reporter Bonnie Anderson. She's convinced that the United States is at a very critical juncture -- the lack of quality journalism and authentic news reporting are a threat to American democracy -- which is why she and a handful of other journalists are intent on covering this story.

In particular, Ms. Anderson says, America's TV and radio networks do not want the public to know how dramatically they have cut corners in producing news, how often they are less than ethical, how they distort news and use technology in ways that do not benefit the public.

The United States government is part of the story too, she says.  There's never been a time when the American public has had less access to public documents or to what used to be open, legal proceedings, she believes. And, she says, the news media are being muzzled with a new definition of patriotism that demands uncritical agreement with and reporting about the current administration.

Finally, add reporters' fear, self-censorship, and too many reporters chasing celebrity instead of the truth and you have Ms. Anderson's grim overview of today's news business.

Why this alarming decay in democracy's lifeblood?

Look no further than the bottom line, Ms. Anderson suggests. Media owners need not return to the days when the fundamental public service nature of news resulted in operating losses. But, she says, the large corporations that now control America's 5 or 6 major news outlets are no longer content with news divisions generating reasonable profits, they are demanding profits some call obscene.

America's media institutions have the legal as well as ethical responsibility to deliver real, unbiased news to the public, Ms. Anderson reminds us. The U.S. Constitutional gave special protection to news outlets for a reason that has been lost -- so that "We, The People" can know enough to govern ourselves -- not for todays' enormous private gains for corporate and family media empires.

Ms. Anderson cares passionately about all this because, as an international correspondent and in her personal life, she has painful first hand experience of what happens to democracy when citizens lack good information or governments control news. A robust democracy, she insists, requires well informed citizens who know what they need to know about their own country and the world, as well as what they want to know to be entertained. Both news and entertainment are fine in their rightful place, she says, the danger is in mistaking one for the other -- “"infotainment" -- blurring the line between opinion and reporting.
Demand better from America's news sources, she challenges news consumers. Be critical. Call, write or e-mail local broadcast stations and national news outlets when entertainment infects "news." Object. It's a good approach to all news sources, she believes, but especially broadcasters -- they are profiting from the use of your public airwaves. It's time to demand that they live up to their special responsibility to encourage debate on all sides of all public issues -- including how news is reported, Ms. Anderson insists -- not saturate airwaves with "infotainment" and Punch-and-Judy Shows.

 

[This Program was recorded October 6, 2004, in Atlanta, Georgia, US.]