Monday, September 12, 2005

Answering Moonves

Orville Schell, the dean of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism offers an intelligent response to CBS chair Les Moonves. Last week in a New York Times Magazine profile, Moonves articulated his goofy idea of reformatting the CBS Evening News to be "somewhere between" two "boring" news anchors and "Naked News."

Schell writes in the Los Angeles Times: "It is increasingly difficult to discern the vision of Madison in broadcast news today, even though most of it comes over airwaves owned by the public and licensed to commercial outlets for a few hundred dollars a year."

Moonves and many viewers abhor what they see is a prevalence of negative news. However, Schell points out:
...if avoiding "dark" becomes the criterion for broadcast, how will Americans learn about such stories as New Orleans and Iraq, never mind Sierra Leone, Kosovo, the melting polar ice cap or the dying oceans? If only perky, upbeat stories and shows make it onto the air, who will inform the public and play the watchdog role?
Good question.

Earlier: The man who will destroy CBS News

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The opinions stated here are my own and in no way reflect those of Brigham Young University, its students, faculty, or sponsoring institution.