PressEthic

USA Today columnist Chuck Raasch wrote an article deploring the current trend from journalism toward entertainment. He cited an NBC news correspondent who, at a recent luncheon, admitted that she was in the entertainment industry. Another example in the article which Raash found unaccpetable was Chris Matthews’ recent cameo on The West Wing.

Raasch asks the question:

Is news simply a commodity that competes with sitcoms, celebrity lifestyle and the oxymoronic reality shows that overrun commercial television and to some degree, the print media? Or is news a public utility that is too important to be treated as a fixture of the bottom line or entertainment marketplace?

I thought that the questions being asked here were similar to the issues that were raised in today’s class. We admit that from the most cynical standpoint, when you really boil down this business of journalism, it only exists as a method to relay advertisements to the public. Sure, readers don’t read the news in order to see those ads, but it is the money from those ads which keep the papers in print day in and day out. Now if this were the only truth about journalism, then the answer to Raasch’s questions would be yes, the news is a commodity that must operate under the pressure to entertain the public, rather than act as a public utility. Of course, many people who get into the field of journalism don’t feel this way, especially before they become jaded by the business and they focus more on the craft of writing, and are genuinely excited to find new stories and get them out to the public. Maybe some people do want to entertain their audience, be it readers or watchers or listeners. I don’t think there is anything wrong with a story being entertaining, as I often seek out the news stories that entertain and interest me, as do most people. I think that is where things get a little grey, and into the realm of entertainment journalism that Raasch is criticizing, when a news network should aim to inform the public, but instead the choice is made in favor of entertaining, more soft news in an attempt to get better ratings. Bernard Goldberg talked about in his chapter “The Most Important Story You Never Saw on TV,” where a story wasn’t told because producers knew that the audience didn’t want to hear it. Choices like this are seemingly made all of the time by networks that are concerned more about ratings, and the way that the system is now I’m not sure that they can be blamed. If the goal of a business is to make a profit, then of course it is going to do what it has to within the (hopefully) ethical boundaries of the law. When the ethics of journalism come into play, however, it seems that either one or the other will be compromised.