Television And The Death Of Journalism

     If I were writing the history of television, my first line would be: "Television, in a relatively short period if time, ruined journalism. We are now in the era of so-called fake news. But if it's fake, it's not really news. At best what passes for television news is political commentary, at worst, propaganda. A lot of reporting is nothing more than speculation or the reporting of trivial subjects like the deaths of long forgotten TV actors and anniversaries of past events. The favorite news source today is "unnamed."

     While there are still a few credible investigative journalists on television and in print, they are being be phased out. Real investigative journalism is too expensive as is the coverage of foreign affairs or government corruption. Even the weather news is so hyped a lot of people no longer pay attention to it. Local TV news is mainly weather, sports, car accidents, and crime with little time for investigative reporting. But even before television, what was called "yellow journalism" or tabloid journalism flourished. 

     Most people know that you can't trust anything you read or hear. Tomorrow the headline in The New York Times could read METEORITE THE SIZE OF TEXAS SPEEDING TOWARD EARTH!! and no one would panic. Okay, that's a bit much, but you get the point. One can only image what's left in journalism school to teach. It really doesn't matter what journalism professors teach because most young people entering television news have degrees in so-called communications, a major that has less to do with writing and news reportage than looking and sounding good.