People tend to have their news media preferences, which is a good thing when the news is going 150 miles per hour, as it has this week in San Diego County.
For local news, I prefer Channel 39, which is San Diego's NBC affiliate. Preferences are always personal, and are founded in all the demographic minutiae from which an individual personality is composed. Age is part of my mix that accounts for an NBC preference. I can remember the novelty of waking up in the morning in the 1950s and watching the original "Today" show on NBC, with Dave Garroway.
So I still like the "Today" show, and so I watch Channel 39 locally. Other San Diegans this week have favored Channel 6, or 8, or 9, or 10, which is good. With news proceeding at 150 mph, it is not a good idea to channel-surf.
Why? Confusion. I did surf some this week, because I am in the media business. Regularly, what I heard on Channel 39 did not square with what Channel 8 was saying, and those both were different from 9, or 10, etc. This was to be expected.
In the news media, as in any enterprise, there is always a tension between principles and realities. The first news media principle is accuracy. Accuracy is also the second and third principle of news media, and it is so important because of credibility. Lose accuracy, lose credibility, forfeit consumer trust, and the consumer remotes off to another channel.
But the news media also must acknowledge reality. When a news story is going 150 mph, accuracy tends to suffer. This is a particularly mean reality for television news organizations. A vital component of accuracy is editing – checking facts – and when stories happen at speed, editing can't keep up. Principles become overrun by realities, just as fire overruns dreams. It can happen even in newspapers, with their overnight cushion, but it happens on the fly, on television, and nothing can be done about it.
A consumer watching Channel 39 will hear these inconsistencies as they happen, and two or three members in a family will look at each other and ask: "What did he (she) say?" It doesn't help that people typically also hear things differently. When 10 people witness the same event, they will present 10 differing reports of what they saw and heard. Thus it is difficult enough to follow a 150-mph story on a single channel. Surf across three or four, each with its own inconsistencies (both on the part of the channel and the viewers), and you see the kind of confusion that can result by the end of the day.
I had an interesting moment on Wednesday morning, just at dawn. First light had risen in the east, but the horizon was still in silhouette, and obscured in places by smoke. I saw flames, bright in the darkness, in the area of the Jamul community, where I used to live. In the line of flame, I could see the silhouette of a ridgeline that I believed to be Vista Grande, a populated hilltop just to the west of Jamul. Where I lived, Vista Grande was literally just across the road. Wednesday morning, were I to believe what I was seeing, the relationship of the fire to Vista Grande meant that the fire was in Mexican Canyon, directly below the house where I lived. My ex-wife still lives there.
I feared for her, and her husband. The fire must be directly below them, not 200 yards down the hill. But then the accuracy principle kicked in. Positively identifying Vista Grande was not possible, in the darkness and the smoke. So I called my daughter, who was in touch with her mom, and learned that the flame line actually was a couple of miles south of what my eyes had wanted to tell me. Taking the time to call was a form of editing, and accuracy was the result.
All this being said, I think all the channels did a pretty good job this week, with this story, particularly my channel, 39. On Wednesday, they were showing an aerial view from a helicopter, and Bill Menish, the 39 morning news anchor, said, "That is Channel 8's chopper, might as well go ahead and give them credit." I thought that was very cool. Another news media reality is competition, which drives networks, particularly, to be first with the news, and accuracy be damned. The San Diego channels actually pooled their identities this week, which for the news media is a fabulous direction in which to head.
Many channels also augmented their reporter staffs by bringing in reporters from others cities: Dallas, Chicago, etc., which was a great idea. Finally, as I was surfing on Wednesday, I saw all the channels except 39 zeroed in on yet another news briefing by local and state officials that was five percent information and 95 percent backslapping. Channel 39 ignored the briefing. Good for them.
No comments:
Post a Comment