Is good news news?
McCarthy, Abigail
Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy IS GOOD NEWS NEWS? OR, CAN HOPE SURVIVE THE MEDIA? DAN RATHER discussed it on CBS radio with U.S. Representative Dorman; John Chancellor spent a Saturday...
...the SEC was investigating one of the country's best known investment companies for defrauding banks by kiting millions of dollars in checks...
...They feel exploited rather than safeguarded by the press...
...What do you think your husband/ father/brother is feeling now...
...It is also true that it seems to have lost interest in telling us about those things which draw us together...
...The obituaries are still there, but accounts of weddings — really the heralding of new units of society and faith in the future — have disappeared from many metropolitan dailies...
...What would you have us do...
...Disheartening...
...Yet the critics are not disputing the constitutionally-based right of the press...
...What did you think...
...He was covered by all the networks and the White House press corps...
...Arrogant questioners assail the motives and judgment of government spokesmen, former high officials, and the ministers of foreign governments — all summoned before the news tribunal by the miracle of modern technology...
...two of the best restaurants in the nation's capital were covers for cocaine dealers...
...Sapping of energy...
...It seems to me that the current troubles of the media rise — at least in part — from forgetting its obligation to create community...
...The St...
...it is coming from recently faithful readers and viewers...
...although the president chose to speak there to highlight that achievement, and although he hailed it, there was not a single mention of it in any news report...
...There is, as always, a temptation to equate criticism with a call to censorship...
...Mattingly thinks a line on the evening news, a paragraph in a news service story about this successful ending to a long hard struggle with one of the country's worst problems would have been good news — and real news — to us all...
...Local editors around the country followed up with the testing of regional opinion...
...The disrespect for news sources is also apparent...
...The American Society of Newspaper Editors had conducted a survey...
...But, although the students of Atlanta's Northside High School for the Performing Arts danced, sang, and acted their hearts out before the press and under the lights to demonstrate the achievement of a doughty principal, dedicated parents, and a cooperating student body in making one city high school drug-free...
...They do not deny that a self-governing people must depend on the free dissemination of information...
...John Chancellor spent a Saturday night hour mulling it over on NBC...
...Do you worry that they might be killed...
...They rather like to think of themselves as the watchdogs of society...
...they went so far as to seek the ideas of the seventh and eighth graders at St...
...At the time all this bad news was breaking, President Reagan was in Atlanta on his tax reform selling tour...
...an ever-widening spy ring was being uncovered in the most trusted branches of the Navy...
...They complain, also, that the press invades privacy and treats its news sources with disrespect...
...It was a heavy load to carry into the day...
...Common action is taken on the basis of shared information...
...volunteer groups — is hard to find...
...and on and on...
...On a morning not too long ago the big urban dailies had the following chronicle of woe: The FBI was under investigation for, at best, failing to uncover the Mafia connections to a former cabinet member's business — at worst, covering it up...
...But that's the news, press people protest...
...They reported — briefly — that he spoke, what he said, and where...
...And what to do...
...It is perfectly true that, as one of the editors of the Atlanta Constitution puts it, the big city press is more "urban" in attitude than most Americans — read "urban" here as more hardened to corruption...
...As I write, the hijacking disaster in the Middle East is in its fourth day, and the newspapers and news shows have been full of the merciless quizzing — albeit in unctuously solicitous tones — of the released captives and of relatives and husbands and wives of those still held...
...Abigail McCarthy Commonweal: 394...
...Two of the complaints from those surveyed are reflections of this deeper underlying flow...
...Failed communication eats away at the sources of our commonality...
...They are the great protectors of the public's right to know...
...The response of the newspeople is somewhat querulous...
...Caroline Mattingly, chairperson of Congressional Families for Drug-Free Youth, cites one small example of what might be done...
...Communication binds the members of a free society together...
...As John Chancellor rather reluctantly admitted, the perception that the press is untrustworthy must be taken seriously if that is the public's perception — and it certainly seems to be...
...Never have they had access to such technical resources...
...Moreover, the number of those who do not read newspapers or who have stopped watching network news is increasing...
...Papers are full of self-help and fitness features, advice columns, and all-revealing articles about currently (and temporarily) famous individuals — but the news of people acting together — of clubs, associations...
...That Americans seem to be losing faith in the media...
...What is of such concern to these survey takers and commentators...
...People complain that the press is cynical, that it does not stress American values, that it does not give us any good news about ourselves...
...All this has affected our collective psyche...
...No longer is the attack coming only from the far right...
...The invasion of privacy is easy to document...
...But the era of media celebration and self-congratulation which began with the rise of the anchorman and culminated in the investigation 12 July 1985: 393 of Watergate seems to be over...
...How do you feel...
...Mark's parochial school...
...We are not necessarily rising to the defense of the overpaid anchor people or the dogmatic, all-knowing columnists if we view the matter as serious, too...
...scientists had concluded that the damage to the atmosphere — the so called "greenhouse effect" — was irreversible and would eventually lessen our food-growing capacity...
...It has affected our ability to act and to hope...
...never have their stars had such celebrity status...
...They question the trustworthiness and credibility of the news gatherers...
...Destructive of hopes...
...Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch, for one, not only sought the reactions of their regular subscribers...
...I think she is right...
Vol. 112 • July 1985 • No. 13
