The News About The News

The news media has spent a lot of time discussing itself lately. Why has the Katie Couric-led CBS News floundered? Why has Brian Williams lost first place to Charles Gibson? It seems to me that the answers aren't that difficult, if the news anchors want to face them.

The Couric Factor

CBS News is floundering because people don't want their news from Katie Couric. It isn't that she's a woman, it's that she doesn't have an air of credibility. Watch her reports from the Today Show. Her opinions were clearly obvious, which is not appropriate for an anchor. Also, watch the Today Show 9/11 coverage. It becomes obvious early on that Couric is just a placeholder until Tom Brokaw can get to the studio. It isn't that she's a woman. Ann Curry, Connie Chung, and Elizabeth Vargas all have the credibility to be anchors. Couric simply doesn't have what it takes.

Why Williams Lost

The reason NBC News started losing its audience can be summed up in the events of one broadcast. Brian Williams told his viewers that NBC had received numerous e-mails telling them that they had focused on Hurricane Katrina too much and to move on to other stories. Despite these e-mails, Williams stated, NBC will continue its coverage of Katrina. If NBC and Brian Williams wanted to focus on Katrina, they shouldn't have brought up the e-mails. The message this sent to the audience was we hear what you're saying, but we don't care. That arrogance cost NBC its lead in the news.

All Terrorism All The Time

Iran has announced that it will launch a 24-hour English-language news channel to compete with CNN, MSNBC, and Fox. The 24-hour PRESS TV news channel said its goal was to "break the global media stranglehold of Western outlets," and "show the other side of the story" in the Mideast. Now terrorists will have a channel they can call their own.

FCC vs Violence On Television

The FCC accepted its latest report on television violence and asked Congress to define excessive violence and give it the power to regulate it. Once again, a government agency has decided that it needs to babysit the American people.

The report (which you can download here) came from a congressional request to answer several questions, one of which was "What are the constitutional limits on the government's ability to restrict the broadcast of excessively violent programming when children are likely to be a significant or substantial part of the viewing audience? In particular, could television violence regulations, including possible time channeling requirements, be narrowly tailored to the governmental interests they are intended to serve?"

I'd like to call attention to the last part of that question, "the governmental interests they are intended to serve."

As I recall, laws aren't supposed to serve government interests, the media are not supposed to serve government interests, and certainly the people aren't supposed to serve government interests. The government is supposed to serve our interests. How is limiting what we are able to watch serving our interests? How is limiting our free speech in our interests?

What I find most interesting is that the FCC has completely failed to define "excessive violence," although they seem to like the idea of limiting when it is on television to when kids aren't around. I guess that means we won't have football games on Sunday afternoons anymore. Newscasts will have to wait until after prime time if they want to cover Iraq, Virginia Tech, or the recent prison riot.

I'm as concerned about the effects of violence on children as the next person. That's why I don't let my children watch "The Sopranos," even though I never miss an episode. But more government intrusion is not the answer. In fact, instead of giving the FCC more regulatory power, let's take some away.

The FCC was supposed to make sure that broadcasters served the public interest as part of their deal to use the public airwaves. This was because the airwaves were scarce. There were limits to them and the government had to regulate how they were used. Well guess what? There's no scarcity in television anymore. There's a lack of quality, but there's no scarcity. Also, broadcasters were held to government standards because they came into everyone homes for free. When was the last time you saw a pair of rabbit ears on someone's television set. I pay the satellite provider to bring me these stations. Without satellite or cable, I can get three stations on a good day. So if I'm paying for these stations, I don't want the government limiting them.

You want limits? Let the marketplace limit them. If people don't want a show because it's too violent, they won't watch it. In turn advertisers won't buy advertising time on it, and it will go off the air. That's the power of the people, and let's never forget that our country is supposed to be run by a government "of the people, by the people, for the people." At least according to President Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address.