TV INDUSTRY BLASTED ON ‘ALL ADS, NO NEWS’ IN 2000 CAMPAIGNS
TV industry -- network and local stations -- was target of broad criticism in Washington Thurs. on its performance during political campaigns last fall. Retired CBS correspondent Walter Cronkite said “our country is for sale today” through campaign contributions and media haven’t made public “sufficiently alarmed.” He said industry “not only profited but profiteered” from 2000 campaigns. ABC correspondent Sam Donaldson generally defended TV’s performance, saying “I don’t believe we fell down” and all-in-all TV networks “did a pretty good job… I don’t think we in the press corps drive campaigns.”
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Washington seminar on “The Future of Campaigns on TV” was sponsored by Annenberg Public Policy Center. Limiting contributions to candidates “is an important first step” toward reform, said Cronkite. “There’s no doubt that the broadcast industry is prime reason” for spiraling cost of running for office, he said. Special interests, he said, “are corrupting… the entire political process… I find it hard to believe” that network executives “can turn their backs” on situation.
In last fall’s campaigns, content analysis of candidates’ views on TV was “almost zero,” said Norman Ornstein of American Enterprise Institute and co-chmn. of 1998 Gore Commission on public interest requirements of TV stations in digital era. He said NBC and CBS owned stations divisions, both of which made commitments of time to candidates last fall, didn’t fulfill their obligations, and performance of “ABC was a disgrace.” On industry in general, Ornstein said: “I don’t see any commitment [to public interest] going forward.” There has been “a profound disappointment in the performance of the industry almost across the board,” he said. Big part of problem, said Candy Altman of Hearst-Argyle TV, is getting local candidates to talk about issues and what’s relevant in campaigns.
CNN correspondent John King said “network news will die if they don’t stay relevant” to voters’ views: “We should just pack it in and go home… It’s incumbent upon us to make judgments as to what is relevant” to public. Tom Rosenstiel of Project for Excellence in Journalism said public “needs to know a lot more” about what’s involved in how professionals in TV news “chose a story” that’s relevant.