PressEthic

I don't know how many of you watched The Colbert Report in its debut this week, but I was tickled pink. I mean, really. Colbert had a gravitas-off with Stone Phillips, seeing who could inject the most gravitas into news-copy. Why? Because it doesn't have to mean anything if you say it right. The competition devolved into tongue twisters.

Colbert's aim is to poke fun at the ridiculous drama of newscasters. They report fluff, and bank on celebrity, flashy graphics and scandal to bring in the viewers.

I think it's fair to guess that, like its predecessor, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report will be a hit. It's fairly common knowledge that a large chunk of the under-35 set gets its news from the Daily Show. Why? Well, everyone else is boring. They don't get it.

Why bring all this up? In today's NYTimes, Thomas L. Friedman wrote an article entitled Leading By (Bad) Example. (Apologies for the TimesSelect link.) Ironic?

So yes, Friedman is an Op-ed columnist. He gets a lot more wiggle room in his articles, since they're not presumed to be "news stories." Friedman does usually write more newsy stories than the rest though, so I was suprised at what I saw today. In the spirit of a Daily Show Colbert Report (back in the old days...), it was a news piece about a delegation of Iraqi judges and journalists, leaving the U.S. after finding great discrepencies between what President Bush says and what he does. At the end of the article, we find this: "(Yes, all of this is a fake news story. I just wish that it weren't so true.)"

Is humor the only way people will take in news today? Are we only willing to listen to "fake news" with roots in truth? My guess is that this sort of phenomenon is a result of two things.

First, my generation is as cynical as they come. Our parents came out of the 60s and 70s, and then raised us in the 80s and 90s-- the back swing in the historical pendulum. So, we're jaded? Yes, dDefinately. Confused? You bet. No one really knows who "the man" is anymore, and we all too well know that the world is more complex than the evening news allows.

Secondly, the news is boring. This doesn't just go for my generation. I hear it in complaints from my parent's generation too. Most newspapers speak in the ever-annoying journalese, using 15 words to do the work of 3; trying to sound professional and coming off as pretentious.

This all worries me, of course. Humor is great, but it is rarely done well. Stewart, Colbert, and Frieman are three very intelligent people, in a category all their own. We can't rely on humor alone though. News has to start drawing in real audiences, with real journalism.

In the meantime, I'll be practicing my standup.