The News About the News
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The scoop on the newsREVIEW BY STEVE WEINBERGLeonard Downie Jr. is the top editor at the Washington Post, one of the nation's most influential daily newspapers. Robert G. Kaiser is the Post's associate editor. Usually, such high-ranking reporters say little or nothing negative about their craft -- not to the general public, anyway. Downie and Kaiser, however, are different. The News About the News, their evaluation of how and why the news has changed, contains plenty of negative material about journalists. As a result, the book is refreshing and educational. Downie and Kaiser seem most upset about two trends that are somewhat related. First is the corporatization of ownership. When a multinational conglomerate like General Electric owns a television network like NBC, when a profit-maximizing company like Gannett owns more than 100 newspapers and broadcast stations, daring, unbiased reporting sometimes becomes a casualty. It can be an act of professional suicide for a journalist to question a contract between GE and the Pentagon, or for a Gannett editor to emphasize expensive investigative projects that harm annual earnings. The second disturbing trend the authors cite is the celebritization of news. An interview with a movie star or a pop singer is treated as news, while important events like the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair are treated as entertainment. Clearly, corporate owners like the entertainment/news connection because it generates buzz, and buzz generates revenue. Meanwhile, coverage of genocidal wars across the globe are minimized and marginalized. When not expressing -- and justifying -- their irritation at the current situation, Downie and Kaiser offer fascinating accounts of superb journalism. Some of those accounts are from the bowels of the Washington Post newsroom. Downie and Kaiser also find praiseworthy examples from broadcast news, but, for the most part, they criticize it far more than they do print news. They do give the network news managers their say, however. The book is riveting, as the writers allow us to listen in on their extended conversations with television anchors Dan Rather of CBS, Tom Brokaw of NBC and Peter Jennings of ABC. Any reader who cares about the quality of information available to the American citizenry is bound to learn something new, and probably unforgettable, from this insiders' account. Steve Weinberg is a book author and magazine writer in Columbia, Missouri.
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