Ted Koppel takes Bill O'Reilly—and the rest of the television news industry to the woodshed over their handling of Donald Trump

[Brian Howell]

Keppel illuminates just how far television news has drifted from serious reporting into entertainment—and places much of the blame on O'Reilly. 

http://www.salon.com/2016/03/03/watch_ted_koppel_shred_bill_oreilly_for_making_journalism_irrelevant_when_it_comes_to_donald_trump/

[Craig Good]

> On Mar 3, 2016, at 07:57 AM, Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Keppel illuminates just how far television news has drifted from serious reporting into entertainment—and places much of the blame on O'Reilly.

Guffaw. There was a time when TV “news” *wasn’t* entertainment? News to me. This is especially hilarious coming from the guy who turned the Iranian hostage crisis into a long-running, cash cow entertainment show.

Of course, I’m still trying to figure out why O’Reilly even qualifies as entertaining.


--
--Craig WWSJD?
clg...@me.com http://www.craig-good.com

Whenever they say "it's for the children" it isn't. Instead, it's
always just another assault on your liberty.

[jack saunders]

Koppel and I were in journalism school at the same time.  Our distinguished mentors openly scorned the television audience, telling us these yokels who couldn't read without moving their lips had to be guided....by elites such as ourselves....and rather liked the genteel oligopoly that willingly lost millions on the evening news for sheer prestige value of the brand.  

Ours was the same cohort who cut the average on-screen sound bite from 22 seconds to 9 -- and later, to 7, in a ratings war, while privately admiring the renegade, bootstrap operation set up by Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer who rashly put dull talking heads up for 15 minutes at a time.....the Gray Lady for TV.

 

---

From: Craig Good <clg...@me.com>
To: Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com>
Cc: Ipse Dixit <Ipse-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 3, 2016 10:09 AM
Subject: Re: [Ipse Dixit] Ted Koppel takes Bill O'Reilly—and the rest of the television news industry to the woodshed over their handling of Donald Trump

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[Richard Perlman]

I think there was a time when news took itself seriously and where networks and newspapers thought their purpose was to inform people. Of course, some were more bent on pushing a position than others and the news was certainly skewed at times for political or financial reasons. However, whether to inform or manipulate opinion, I don't think news organizations saw themselves as entertainment. In fact, the general organizational structure of the networks and media giants usually placed news units separately from the rest of the content, with a high degree of independence.

CBS news as recently as the 1960's held to that tradition and PBS news still does. I am not saying they gave "honest" or unbiased news. But, they were not entertainment either.

At least for TV, I think the change to "entertainment" started with the realization that the networks had a whole hour with a single sponsor (usually insurance or cigarette companies if my failing memory is correct). Once they switched from a single sponsor to lots of 30 second "spots," it became necessary to raise the ratings to keep ad prices high and now we have the nightly news being brought to us by Disney and the Clowns at Fox.


Richard

[Scott Hotes]

In the clip, Koppel is making the following points:

1. We've moved to sound-bite political discourse and Fox/O'Reilly have some culpability here.

2. Trump's supporters in particular seem to thrive in this "zero substance" world order.

3. If/when interviewed with tough questions, Trump ignores the questions, says what he wants

  and that this is a breaking away from more traditional discourse.

My $0.02:  The first may be true, I don't think he's made his case on the second, and while the

third may be true, I don't think there's anything new here.  Politicians vary in their ability to 

evade questions without the audience being aware of what happened, and Trump is by no

means the best at it.

I honestly think the wrong questions are being asked here.

First, if anything Koppel is in some ways perpetuating the ridiculous myth that Fox or any

modern day cable "news" is anything but entertainment, as it seems like Richard has the

motivation largely laid out below.

I do think there are some interesting questions here, such as:

- Has the level of political discourse changed/dropped over the years?  For example, are

  more intellectually rigorous discussions, such as the Lincoln/Douglas debates, the

  Federalist Papers, the Buckley/Vidal debates, assuming they still occur, been pushed

  to the sidelines, have less/no impact then they had in the past?  How could such a

  thing be effectively measured?  If it is true, why?

- Is there something to Colbert's "truthiness" concept, whereby the American brand of

  Capitalism, and the undeniable rise of a materialist culture having some real impact

  on society's conception of "truth" and "relativism"?  If so, this could help explain some

  of what is going on here.

Scott

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[Jack Saunders]

The more politically correct a politician is, the more he/she is withholding.  Once that meme broke big, Trump was all over it...with two key messages:

1). I do not do political correctness, and I can prove it.

2)  It's gonna be great!

There is a theory that this is enough, and that the more they trot out guys like Mitt Romney to afttack him, the better for Trump.

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