News No Longer Informs, It Entertains

It’s called news, but really, it’s entertainment.

The news industry has changed. No longer do we receive objective reports on items of world, domestic or local import. Nowadays, when it comes to broadcast, print and online news reporting, the objective is two-fold: entertain and manipulate.

News used to be informative. The overriding agenda of news reporting used to be to strive to help the viewing/listening audience better their society by helping people understand the world in which they lived.

Night after night, year after year, when Walter Cronkite signed off his broadcasts with the words: “That’s the way it is” he meant it. That was the way it is. But today, it’s no longer the “way it is”. Today, it’s the way we want you to think it is.

Today’s media focus is on the extremes.

In the mainstream media there is no longer a middle of the road. It’s all about the extremes. It’s about hyperbole. It’s about eliciting a reaction — a gut reaction — from the audience. The standard coverage of events is delivered with exaggerated norms, by hyperbolic speakers with extremist views.

Extremism makes for better and more interesting stories. Extremists are, by definition, a small sliver of a group — but in today’s news coverage, with few exceptions, they become the center of the story. Coverage of the January 6th storming of the Capitol is the perfect example of the mainstream media coverage.

What happened on that day was horrific, but it hardly represents the entire right or the Republican voter base. Yet, if you read or watched coverage of January 6th and its aftermath, one would think that every person who dared to vote Republican was an extremist who broke into the Capitol.

The mainstream media is almost exclusively focused on the extremist and their coverage of events are made to appear extreme. In reality, the events and the people are extreme. The issue is that these people and news events do not represent normative life.

There are two great cliches in journalism — or there used to be. There were two criteria for a news item to be worthy of front page coverage. Number one was: “If it bleeds it leads.” Number two was: “If a dog bites a person it is not news — BUT when a person bites a dog — that’s news!”

Nowadays, if it’s not bleeding, make it look like it is. Standard nightly mainstream headlines scream of impending doomsday scenarios. “The future of democracy is on the line!” “America as we know it is at stake.” “This is the most crucial election in history.”

The list of hyperbole continues on and on. It’s purpose is to make the viewer or reader think that the sky is falling and that the “evil other” is at fault, that the other — those who do not fall in line with your political point of view, are the primary cause of all problems.

The second cliché speaks to breaking down the norms of behavior. Take, for example, the border with Mexico. Coverage on the right presents Biden and Harris blithely permitting an inhumane situation to build up and overflow on the southern border. According to coverage from the left, Trump and the right separated families and housed them in concentration camps.

A new era is upon us. It is an era of extremes. There is almost no middle ground and certainly no common ground.

Just take a look at college campuses. If you happen to believe in God and live a traditional lifestyle that respects traditional values, you are perceived on campus as an oppressor and a remnant of a prehistoric era.

Those who advance the ideas of tradition for younger generations and for future generations are transformed into rejectionists. They are looked at as outright evil. They become demons because in the eyes of the other, the traditionalist threatens modern values.

And fighting evil makes for great news!

Today, headlines, leads and teases are all exaggerated. Meant to keep you on the edge of your seat. Whet your curiosity — not your intellect.

The intent is to draw in the audience. And then, at the end of the 90-second video, or 30-, 60- or 90-second read — how often are we disappointed by the actual story? But the headlines were so good.

That’s because, as much as it’s about extremes, today’s news industry is even more about entertainment.