Can We Stop Calling It The News Yet?

On our most recent podcast, we were discussing what we have learned from movies and television this year. The concept of what were we taught as we spent countless hours absorbing cinematic delights in theaters or curled up on the couch. One thing that hit me like Thor’s hammer on the Rainbow Bridge of my nose was, “Wow, news as I knew it is actually dead”.

I don’t mean this as some pedantic political take on the recent election results. Whomever you voted for makes no matter to me, you have your reasons and I support firmly hugging out our differences as we face a curious future. Internet high-fives all around. No, I mean the institution we know as ‘’The News” is deader than Jimmy Hoffa, and twice as easy to prove.

I remember growing up, hanging out with my grandfather, watching the nightly news. Not much of it made sense, but it began my absorption of the facts. (Sorry, I should clarify since CNN and FOX seem to misunderstand the definition of that word – A fact is something that actually exists in reality, a verifiable truth.) Sitting with my grandpa every night, he would explain in great detail the importance of these details we call facts: how they should always take precedence over opinion, the importance of searching for each one before even considering a public stance, and especially using them to illustrate your point without injecting your own predetermined views into the debate. Crazy, right?

Watching the news at this young age, with this wise old man, taught me so much about life. It helped me understand other viewpoints and where they come from, contrasting ideologies, societal and sexual identity conflicts, and so on. Even on issues where my grandfather and I vehemently disagreed, I could always understand his viewpoint simply because he and my mother were so steadfast on this very concept of “consider every angle”. Anchors like Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw offered the same Sergeant Joe Friday approach to journalism: Just the facts, ma’am. Opinions were never part of their broadcast. Sure, there was the occasional disbelief or momentary pause that gave you an inkling to their viewpoint, but overall? Just the facts.

Then 2016 happened. I know it’s been a train careening down these tracks for a long time, but now we’ve finally arrived at our destination. As the election heated up, so did every network on the air. Intelligent anchors like Megyn Kelly, Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, the list goes on and on – everyone threw their credibility into the nearest trash bin and called it reporting. Even stalwart Wolf Blitzer, who typically carries the emotional resonance of a Jason Statham character, couldn’t mask his disdain as he was forced to call certain states in this year’s election contest.

No longer were our preferred outlets feeding us facts, now they were each cooking them to their preferred serving size. Make no mistake, it is not just with politics as a whole, it is with every aspect of every single polarizing issue in America. A white cop shoots a black suspect? Let’s favor an opinion ASAP, even before any tangible details are released. Someone accidentally kills a protected animal? I bet America needs us to guide them to their feelings. You voted for so-and-so? Let’s go to our skewed panel to present which adjective describes you and your family best. Don’t worry, if we do not get the responses we’re looking for, we can be sure to only ask questions and offer statements that will lead us back to where we want this story to go: the ratings promised land.

I get that we live in a 24-hour news cycle and these outlets need ratings, but isn’t there a certain responsibility inherent to reporting the news? Especially when your outlet is literally called “News”? Celebrities generate clicks and views, sure, but are they really the most informed group to be shelling out scientific data? Shouldn’t there be a standards and practices that forbids so much manipulation of information that is structured and delivered solely for the purpose of infuriating and dividing the populace? When I was a kid, I could not even tell you what Rather or Brokaw nor their respective organizations thought of most events or candidates, now I don’t even need to Google it. It’s all right there on my screen, or pinned on their website.

We even have various news outlets endorsing candidates now. It’s not enough that you’re already swaying stories towards your predisposed viewpoints, now you’re flat-out advertising them internally?! How can you retain credibility when your soul is so easily up for sale? I desperately miss the era when the news refused to tell me what to think, who to vote for, or ANYTHING outside of facts. There was an era of both responsibility and respectability, both of which died in the fiery car crash we call the year 2016.

It all led to the disaster that was the 2016 election season. Pundit after pundit, viewpoint after viewpoint, facts left drifting in the winds of corporate opinion. Were some outlets prediction of a blowout to keep the other side from voting? Were pollsters lying to protect themselves from public persecution, often from the networks themselves? Or was everyone simply blindsided that they were not nearly as powerful as they thought they were?

I meant what I said at the beginning when I said who you voted for doesn’t matter to me. It doesn’t. I believe whole-heartedly that we are a system designed to respect the viewpoints of all Americans, even ones we disagree with. I also have no real opinion on the outcome, the future is still off a bit, so I’ll wait and see where all of this goes.

But man am I happy about the Mike Tyson-sized black eye our “news” organizations took because of it.

Sometimes you need a little smackdown to be reminded of your humility and that your one job, your PURPOSE, as a news organization is to feed the public information. Not rhetoric, not opinion, not conjecture. Information. And in this era of non-stop election and issue-of-the-week coverage, they all have systematically failed to do their job. The vast array of news organizations out there have neglected to deliver the facts without their own orchestrated message, and this time it bit them right on their proverbial ass.

Will they learn from this and get back to basics? Possibly realize the damage and division their “reporting” causes and harken back to the fundamentals of that forgotten era of true journalism? In a time where Brian Williams can embellish facts and find his way back into the industry, fat chance. Instead of reflection, they’re back on deflection. Their approach wasn’t wrong, people are just liars, sexists and racists. That’s the only thing that makes sense, right?

That’s the approach now, get back on the defensive and even push for more division. Rage sells. We weren’t complicit in this wealth of misinformation, it was everyone else. Let’s once again cast details to the background and focus on our true business of finger pointing and name calling. Maybe even toss in a handful of “experts” who can banter back-and-forth so abusively it will drown out the most obvious and tangible truth we have come to understand about this rebranded form of informed entertainment.

The news as we knew it is dead, Grandpa. That’s just a fact.