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I like Charlie Gibson. Just about everyone thinks he’s a good guy and I count myself in the outer fringes of that group. I worked beside him on Capitol Hill years ago and I have nothing bad to say about him personally. So, this commentary is not directed at him, per se. No matter, the anchor job at a large network has long ago been corrupted into a sales and promotion position over news content. As a result, we got a week long celebration of everything Charlie as a means of promoting ABC News. The long goodbye from ABC’s World News Tonight, with little retrospectives each for four nights followed by a celebrity filled tribute on the last night, was over the top self indulgent. This sort of thing is expected from NBC, but ABC News? Their right arm must be sore now from bending around to pat themselves on the back.
I don’t like promotion in general on television news programs. Just give us the news and let us figure out if you are the best in town, okay? Days on end of showing how grand Charlie’s time was at ABC and how much he enjoyed it all, along with all those really deep, serious interviews, was just too, too much. On Thursday evening they took to showing how much “fun” he had while at GMA and, in the process, I have to say, made him look like something of a clown in newsman’s clothing, albeit an affable, decent fellow.
The big finale on last Friday had five, count ‘em, five US presidents singing Charlie’s praises. Four ex-presidents and one sitting president. Everyone but the Dali Lama and Nelson Mandela cut a little piece of video to say how wonderful he was all those years in the anchor seat. Part of this exercise seems to be to prove just how many big stars can be at their command, like a third grader bringing a famous baseball player to class.
One night of this kind of thing would have been more than enough. Post it on your damn website, for heaven’s sake, and let those who want to see it log-on and tune in. Five nights? Well, guess you could compliment them for a limited sort of self restraint because, unlike NBC, they didn’t follow it with a one hour special, as NBC did when Brokaw skipped out to semiretirement.
You could dismiss this sort of thing as fun and, also, a way bonding with the audience, showing the human side of a person who, admittedly, was a meat and potatoes newsman, more serious uncle than flashy performer. Yet, this kind of “ain’t we grand” interlude can have a pernicious effect on a news division, putting the anchor connection ahead of substance and making people believe they are better than they are. If we congratulate ourselves, do we also engage in self criticism? (No, not in public anyway.)
The failures of American news media over the last two decades are legion and fairly astounding. They do not have to do with left or right bias, as a million bloggers and radio loudmouths would have us believe. The major media have flat out missed incredible, huge stories as they grew cancer like toward disaster, like the housing bubble and dangers building to the terrorist attacks of 9-11. There was also the run up to the Iraq war, where Bush administration claims of WMD, possible nuclear weapons and a ties to al Queda were passed off as fact with little question. Big stuff, really important.
The barriers are down in television news, just as they are in newspapers, as “old media”, and those who run it, ponder much lower viewership, ratings and revenues. What would have once been considered unthinkable is now routine. In time, the outrageous could also move toward the norm. The major news divisions of the commercial networks are still operated like they have some public responsibility, but how long can that last if that notion shrinks to a fig leaf of fake pretension?
If ABC had wanted to throw a party for Charlie, I’d be glad to come or read about it in the newspaper. I would have been pleased to hear everyone tell how much they loved him and enjoyed working with him. While using airtime to puff him and, by extension, themselves was enjoyable at moments, behind it lurks the collapse of seriousness in broadcast news and a general lack of restraint in the use of promotion for its own sake. I don’t think journalism has to cover itself in ash, but beating your own drum while the world around you falls to pieces should be viewed as just a tad inappropriate. Sorry, Charlie.
Doug Terry, 12/23/09
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