Does that happen on your newscasts

TELEVISION. Cont'd.

Does that happen on your newscasts?? Go back to straight journalism where you present the facts and we decide what they mean. We don't need studio transitions and side comments on every story. Just have em thank the live reporter and turn to a new graphic and a new story. We can handle the abruptness of the next unrelated story--we see it on the networks all the time. You're wasting precious seconds and your anchors are breaking journalistic rules in the process--all for marginal gain! What ever happened to that practice, years ago, when you would put up a super that said "Analysis" when a reporter was offering his opinion on the meaning of stories? These days, you intersperse reporter opinion with facts. Don't viewers have trouble differentiating when you mix them in each story? Are you columnists or reporters? Decide which your people are and tell them. We're getting as confused as they are.

6. Practice some ethics on what you report about people. Get out the business of promoting law enforcement's presumption of guilt, night after night. Remind yourselves of basic civics class--that there are other amendments in the Bill of Rights besides the First one. Among them are the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth--having to do with privacy, fairness and due-process to the accused. Too often, reporters present as Truth, the charges of the accuser (whether police, consumer, or opposing political party.) You're people do it by providing vastly more airtime to the police official, the victim, the crime scene, pictures of the hapless accused in handcuffs--and they don't even bother anymore with a second disclaimer, "By the way, the suspect says he didn't do it." Put another way, help us be better citizens by being better examples. Respect the spirit of the Constitution, even if a free press isn't quite obliged to abide by it. After all, if you think you have a responsibility to teach us about seat belts and correctly feeding our pets, consider that you should teach us about the principles on which this country is founded. That, former colleagues, will truly be in the public interest. Doing it will help you sleep better because, in the final analysis, knowing you consistently did good works is more rewarding than making money and probably won't change the ratings anyway.

7. Re-define your audience segments and program to them. It's time you acted on what you already know, that it's wrong that most viewers are all middle school educated parents of 1.5 small children. A large percentage of your viewers live alone or their children are grown and gone. Working class people aren't just consumers. They work in the industries on which you should report but your people only play to viewers as "consumers." . Health care people, nearly ten percent of your viewer ship, want to know about the health of their industry--not about being a patient with some obscure disease of the day. Don't be afraid of business news. Give twenty seconds to hospital mergers. That's important news to ten percent of your audience! Your viewers work in heath care, manufacturing, government, education, sales, technology, retail, and other identifiable industries. We make our livings in those industries and so they're important to us. You must find a way to serve those several easily identifiable segments of your community. Your reporters have to write stories to us if we are to find value in your product. We parts make up your whole viewership--we are not just consuming shoppers. Business and industry news is the main reason why so many of us have left you for CNN. They treat us like thinking adults. You should do more computer stories. Do you realize how many of us own computers today? You risk losing the audience that cares about news while you try only to keep the ones who don't. Summarizing this, programming only to the lowest common denominator will cost you dearly. Especially when the Internet gets slightly faster and we turn to it instead of you to click on just the video news stories we need to read.

8. Do what most professions do--educate your people so you can educate us. Few TV stations invest in seminars to educate their staffs--other than consultant classes. Few have guest speakers from the community to raise the awareness level of their reporters. Few stations send their reporters out to actually learn about the community--without a story assignment in hand. Give reporters periodic release from the pressure of turning a daily story to get out and just learn about the society on which they are tasked to report. Have them beat specialize so when they cover news, they understand those industries and get to know the players and the issues. Their stories will be better for it, and we who work in them will notice. That so many of your staff are perceived as air heads is a training issue. You can fix that. Most companies your size spend the money to do it. This essayist didn't realize that fact, until he got out of newsrooms.

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