TV News: Ripping away the curtain

Jonah Goldberg:

Now, as a free-market guy, I have no huge ideological problem with this. Executives at CBS have apparently concluded that they can sell more soap by having Ms. Couric read the news. What bothers me is all the reverence the rest of the media has for the people at the top of their profession and, worse, the grand fiction that there is a high wall between entertainment and news.

Three quick points:

1. Do media writers take TV new seriously because they think it is real news? Or do they think (despite the crashing ratings) that the yahoos in Hicksville still take it seriously.

2. How does a media critic talk about the importance "professional journalistic standards" with a straight face and then include pretty, perky, tanned, and blow-dried newsreaders in the club?

3. Is it possible TV news gets a pass because it is a reliable passive conduit that pushes Manhattan "news judgment" into 20 million homes in the hinterlands? In essence, CBS News is allied with and helps extends the reach of the New York Times in the battle for "explanation space."


OK, four points. Goldberg writes:

Ms. Vieira's official bio touts up front that she won a Daytime Emmy as a game-show host and buries the fact she won five real Emmys for her work as a 60 Minutes reporter.

How does she qualify as a reporter? Haven't we established that the real reporting at "60 Minutes" is dones by producers like Mary Mapes?

Five: Rebecca Dana is all over the Katie Couric story like a real reporter.