September 11, 1968

Time For TV To Grow Up

There was nothing wrong with either the Democratic or Republican convention that a little responsible journalism wouldn't cure.

The GOP was criticized by the national press for being too dull, and the Dems were flayed for heavy handed repression.  Both views are myopic.  They represent what lazy and opinionated newsmen wanted, rather than facts.

Mix these two shortcomings with a large case of conceit and you have a near useless brand of journalism.

The significant development in the Republican convention was the finesse with which National Chairman Ray Bliss kept the lid on.  Four years ago the Republican party came unglued to the delight of the press.  The convention that nominated Barry Goldwater was great copy, no matter that it was a disaster for the country as well as the party.  Without a strong opposition, the Democrats escalated the Vietnam war and emptied the national treasury.

The rebuilding of the Republican Party, and holding seething differences in check at the convention, was a major accomplishment that the national press was either ignorant of or indifferent to.  Whichever is the case, it does our big-time journalists little credit.

The Democratic convention, likewise, was badly distorted by the news media.  Objections to the stringent security measures were freely aired but not one news man published or broadcast the urgent reasons for the security.

The primary objective of a journalist, in my opinion, should be to communicate.  Pertinent information must be channeled in two directions.  A news media is the intermediary between the official and unofficial, between the known and the unknown, between fact and opinion.

Had any newsman simply asked Mayor Richard Daley at first, as they did a week later, why so many police and national guard were deployed a vast amount of misunderstanding would have been avoided.  The fact that all three Democratic candidates had been threatened with assassination left Daley with no alternative.

Instead of calming the situation with facts, the newsmen egged on the malcontents and self-servers with liberal amounts of space and time.

The television interviewers and commentators were particularly childish.  Every wild statement and stupid rumor was breathlessly treated as the scoop of the century.

It was authoritative that Teddy Kennedy would accept a draft, that Lyndon Johnson would be re-nominated, that large blocks of Negroes would walk out of the convention, that the New York delegation would march on the podium with petitions, that the doves would stage an all-night sit in for peace, that those delegates dissatisfied with the platform would disrupt the convention, that the Georgia delegation would boycott the convention, that McGovern would throw his support to McCarthy, that McCarthy would withdraw.

All hogwash.

The plain fact is that television, by and large, has no experience with judging news.  Being primarily an entertainment medium, TV shuns the dull truth in favor of the titillating supposition.

Television scores with 60 seconds worth of on-the-spot film and the in-depth special.  It falls down badly with gavel-to-gavel coverage of a political convention in which there is about one hour in six of sufficient significance worth mass broadcasting to the general public The pressure to hold the audience over long stretches of routine business leads to shameless exploitation of trivia.

It's time television grew up.

Police "brutality" during the Democratic convention toward hippies, yippies and other bizarre representatives of the great unwashed furnished another example of the irresponsible journalistic approach to a problem.

Films and pictures of police clubbing demonstrators is shocking indeed.  Interviews with beaten marchers are heart rending.  Yet, how many newsmen were present during the hour preceding the three-minute police charge? What reporter recorded the endless spitting, obscene name calling, pushing, shin-kicking and stone throwing?

Frequent playback of the three minutes of violence whipped the Democratic delegates into a frenzy.  One network made three copies of a brief clubbing episode and spliced them together to make the event seem prolonged.  In another day we called this exaggeration "yellow journalism."

We no longer "report" conventions but rather "comment" about them.  We've gotten out of balance.  Comment is good and necessary, but it needs to be deemphasized.  Straight, objective reporting should be the main thrust of journalism.

We now have a growing cult of personality within the journalism profession.  Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Mike Wallace, Eric Severied are celebrities who shape the news just by taking part in it.  They need chariot attendants to stand behind them as in old Roman days to remind them that they are, after all, only mortal.

Newspapers need only to call out of retirement some of the old-time journalists who prided themselves on straightforward reporting on the front page and fearless opinions on the editorial page.  No subtle, weasel blurring of news with comment, or fence-straddling editorials.

Television has a harder task in becoming more responsible with the news.  It has no built-in delay between the gathering of material and its dissemination.  Normally it has no opportunity for older, wiser heads back in the main office to inject some editing judgment.

The American Broadcasting Company is on the right track, I think, with a condensed tape of the convention.  Editing judgment is brought to bear on the mass of fact and nonsense collected.  The bias of Howard K. Smith hardly qualifies him as the master of ceremonies of this well-prepared presentation, but the approach is eminently correct.

It will be interesting to see in the coverage of the political campaigns whether our national press has gained any wisdom from its dismal performance at the conventions.

Author: Lindsey Williams