Is hard news a thing of the past?

June 26, 5:29 PMBay Area Moderate Conservative ExaminerDwight L. Schwab Jr.

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Many years ago, I used to sit in front of our television in the family room watching “The CBS News with Walter Cronkite” religiously.  My father, (if he had gotten home from the law office), would sit in a chair and mimic the field correspondents as they would sign-off after their reports.

“Terry Drinkwater, CBS News, Los Angeles” or “Eric Severeid, CBS News, New York”. 

Each time they would sign-off, you could be assured you would hear him imitating that certain reporter’s voice and style.  It was a disdainful sort of style that projected his true feelings about the media in general. 

He was very distrustful of the press and found it ridiculous that they felt the need to identify themselves after every report.  He felt “a monkey could read their script just as well” and there was “nothing particularly special” about just going through the motions.

He was a very proud man.  As a trial attorney, my father also detested ads on television for other lawyers when that came into vogue during the 1980’s.  To him, a professional just did their job and there was no fancy anything about that.

Dad passed away at 95 last October. 

Watching, the hurriedly put together Obama daytime press conference the other day, I could almost hear my father from above mimicking the very media reporters sitting in the press room asking the questions.
 
For me, it was a profoundly sad day as a journalism graduate some 33 years ago.

I used to debate my father about the press and their real intentions.  Of course, I always would defend their right to say and do what they wished and he would counter with how biased and full of themselves they were.  It was a debate that lasted the scope of his life.

Since his passing and Obama’s victory in November, I have heard many pundits accuse the press of one-sided reporting of Obama’s presidency.  A sort of worship-at-the-alter, if you may.  Although I rejected that notion as the same old criticism I had heard over the years about every sitting president, this was beginning to feel different.

Even at the annual press dinner held each year as a sort of comedy roast, Obama himself made a comment about how much the press was fawning over him and how good it was “to see a room full of people that voted for him.”

I started to remember my father’s words all those years before.

It was reported that at the press conference the other day, two “ringers” were placed in the room by the White House staff.  During the questioning, the president singled out both “reporters”.  Later, many of those present were quoted as saying they were “unfamiliar” with the media outlets those people claimed to work for.  That startled me, since it’s a well known fact that the press itself is an elite fraternity of men and women who spend many hours a month together.

It was then reported that hearing about false journalists, only the Fox News people left in disgust including Major Garrett, their Chief White House reporter. 

What in the world is going on here with the Fourth Estate?

I reflected back to the many discussions concerning the news media my journalism classes would cover and how fiercely my professors would defend the press’s rights. It was mandatory that all full professors have at least 15 years in some sort of media employment prior employment at the university. Many professors had come to teach directly after the turbulent Nixon years.

Since the rise of 24 hour news, it has become more apparent that there aren’t enough stories in a normal day to fill the enormous extra time now reserved for straight news.

We are seeing more and more commentary and personal opinion infiltrating what viewers had once perceived as actual news stories.  The two being more difficult to differentiate as the years roll by.

I don’t think anyone objects to outright declarations by news media centers that what you are hearing is the opinion of a the reporter or the source, but that practice has been abandoned to such an extent that often times the two are a complete blur.

  If the media doesn’t begin to police its own industry in a more prudent fashion, the general public will be forever divided into different perceptions of what hard news really is.

It will in fact be an argument as to who their favorite opinion spinner is, rather than who delivers the news, is the most comprehensive format.

Let’s hope Obama’s last press conference causes such an outrage that the media itself insures this scenario never happens.