Orchestrated crises
McCarthy, Abigail
zational life. This will have to be formu- of religious privatization and linguistic Drug addiction is epidemic. Our borders lated by people who know as much about secularization, it is...
...Citizen to be kept out of the public and semi- can see, no small order...
...A religious vocabulary is permit- But gratitude is due to the organizers of evidence that the current cocaine ted at home, in church, and in a small the recent Chicago conference...
...What shared national ex- uneven and amateurish they are, they to evaluate events...
...They fear that the exten- begun to wonder, as I have, whether the that the second generation of commensive coverage of world news now made nightly drumbeat of alarm is good for the tators do not have the sense of awe and possible by the far-flung network corre- nation's nerves...
...Whether it will outrage mounts...
...in a medium treated as half-business, pronouncements of Rather, those expres- And, although I dutifully marched into half-entertainment...
...They epidemic has already peaked and the use number of other settings...
...A glance at the morning headlines, opinion in these United States are blurred communications, and editorial page a five-minute newsbreak on the car radio and lost to common knowledge...
...having heard it all television over to the networks and their "shared experience" which makes for before...
...In this world da...
...addicted...
...perience did I miss...
...National Institute on Drug Abuse has realm...
...UnfortuTHE NEWS WORTH MISSING nately, this is only one example of the way in which competing journalists ignore complexity and amplify stories beif ATIONAL network news programs ment of Walter Cronkite and John Chan- yond reasonable limits...
...They range from corporate In a secular society, religion is expected Connecting religion and work is, you executivess to crossing guards...
...as a nation of communities whose wistion of cable programs in any case...
...It is out of place have at least taken the first step and put of other drugs is declining...
...If local shows supersede the information solemnly confided by pers I had reserved, I didn't always get those of the networks, no matter how Jennings essential to the citizen's ability through them...
...We should not be surprised national unity...
...We cellor and the side-lining of David Shared experience, as the networks read and hear that their time slots Brinkley...
...I myself defected to the transmit it, is all too often the New York on affiliated local stations are being pre- "MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour" and am experience or, as the celebration of the empted by locally staffed news shows...
...The variety and the regional prime-time advertising dollar...
...And I would wager that they have advertisers...
...cations or trips abroad scarcely affect diversity of life, of creativity, and of Television columnists, professors of them...
...The deterioration of that the conduct of foreign affairs will tember this year I was where it wasn't the sense of public service was inevitable somehow suffer...
...writers are alarmed...
...broader message, which is that there is a worsening crisis...
...beginning to be less than faithful to that...
...And The only trouble with that, points out dom comes from many sources and for those of us who were around for the columnist Richard Cohen, was that this whose strength is greatest when we come beginning of network news and 'saw it barrage obscured some important facts...
...But "the when discussing the affairs of govern- the issue on the American Catholic agen- statistics are not allowed to intrude on its ment, business, or science...
...Our borders lated by people who know as much about secularization, it is difficult to see how are breached...
...sions of painedd concern by Brokaw, or the newspaper shop for the morning pa- Who knows...
...There is reason ORCHESTRATED CRISES for concern, yes, but not panic...
...They warn that the - and they are as in touch as they need to We sold an invaluble national resource loss of the nightly twenty-odd minutes be...
...are in danger of disappearing...
...peak, its decline began with the retire- The air waves were saturated with alarm...
...economics and organizational theory as worldly occupations can even be dis- Our safety and security are endangered they do about moral theology...
...When they return to daily viewing for a mess of pottage long ago when we with Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, or Tom they often have a sense of - "Isn't this turned the marvelous education tool of Brokaw will mean the decline of the where I came in...
...Yet, says Cohen, the public sphere and confined to the private ever be done successfully is doubtful...
...to reasoned, step-by-step consensus...
...responsibility that lingered in the work of spondents will disappear and, I suppose, For all of August and part of Sep- the first generation...
...cussed as religious vocations, let alone by those responsible who are drugFinally, the nature of modern society...
...ABIGAIL McCARTHY 10 October 1986: 521...
...DAVID R. CARLIN, JR...
...Statue of Liberty demonstrated so disMore and more station owners and man- Many of those addicted to the news are mayingly, the California/Hollywood agers find themselves unable to resist the finding that the lapses occasioned by va- experience...
...Our children are at risk...
...exist as such in actual fact...
...Aren't those grave convenient to turn to the evening news...
...Apparently a cre- may well draw on the larger experience It seems to me that the hegemony of scendo of reports that the drug crisis had and the regional genius of all America the three network news programs was reached alarming proportions and was and give back to us a sense of ourselves bound to be destroyed by the prolifera- steadily worsening...
...The fear engendered by this kind of Of several minds: Abigail McCarthy reporting is so great, Cohen adds, that Americans seem willing to surrender cherished civil liberties to fight a battle they are already winning...
Vol. 113 • October 1986 • No. 17
