- > Network Snooze > By Michael Kelly > Wednesday, June 14, 2000; Page A39 > > This week, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press > released one of its periodic reports on the state of things in the > land of the establishment media, and as usual, the state was wretched. > This is cheering news, fresh confirmation that there is a God and that > justice prevails. > > Specifically, the report found that only 48 percent of Americans > follow national news closely most of the time, a new low. Only 31 > percent of younger adults say they enjoy keeping up with the news. In > newspapers, which have long suffered from declining readership, the > most recent drop has been modest. But in television news, which has > been the great power among the modern media states, the collapse has > been astonishing for its speed and depth. Viewership of the network > news programs has, as Dan Rather might say, fallen faster than a > drunken pig off a greased tightrope. > > In 1994, 74 percent of those surveyed reported watching a news > broadcast or news-based program on television during the preceding > day. This year, only 55 percent said they had watched TV news > "yesterday." Viewing time has similarly declined. In 1994, 37 percent > of those surveyed reported watching at least one hour of TV news on > the preceding day. The corresponding figure now is 23 percent. > > Viewership of the networks' primary news programs, the evening > broadcasts, has likewise pig-plummeted. Only 50 percent of respondents > this year said they watched the evening broadcasts, compared with 59 > percent in 1998, 65 percent in 1995 and 71 percent in 1987. The > percentage of regular watchers of the evening broadcasts has fallen to > 30 percent, half of what it was in 1993. Only 17 percent of those > younger than 30 watch the nightly broadcasts regularly. In local news, > the trend is likewise dramatically downward: Fifty-six percent of > adults watch local TV news regularly, compared with 77 percent in > 1993. > > Where have all the sheepies gone? Naturally, to the Internet. > One-third of adults now regularly get news online; among those younger > than 30, 46 percent go online for news at least once a week. Moreover, > as more and more Americans use the Internet regularly, more and more > regular Internet users are learning to reject television news; two > years ago, 35 percent of Internet users said they regularly watched a > nightly network news broadcast; now only 26 percent retain the old > habit. > > All this tells us, of course, that the Internet is the coming > thing--but more too. It tells us that the marketplace works and that a > majority of people are not utter fools. Consider the standing of the > oldest of old media, the newspaper, compared with television news. The > percentage of adults who say they read a daily newspaper regularly is > down this year from 68 percent to 63 percent, but that is still more > than double the comparable figure for regular viewership of the > network nightly news. > > Consider also the health of cable's targeted information channels. > About 33 percent of viewers now get their news from CNBC (for > investors), MSNBC (for the young and the Netty) or the Fox News Cable > Channel (for relief from the network news' rote liberal bias). ESPN, > the sports channel, regularly draws 23 percent of the public, while 32 > percent visit the Weather Channel. Thirty-seven percent regularly > watch the History Channel or the Discovery Channel. > > What these diverse survivors and thrivers have in common is that they > all offer information the consumer wants or needs and cannot get > elsewhere. Even a bad newspaper gives readers (for little money) an > amalgam of information not available in any other form, including > Web-based: at least some international and national news, substantial > community news and commentary, weather, sports, stock data, feature > stories. The niche cable channels likewise provide their focused > customers with information that is both substantial and relevant to > those consumers' sensibilities. > > By contrast, network news offers more and more junk. The decline of > the tube isn't just about the rise of the Net; it is also about the > decline of the tube. Americans dropped the habit of watching TV news > as TV gave up any serious effort to report the news, with the networks > largely shutting down their national and international reporting > operations to present faux newscasts cobbled together from > live-disaster coverage, bits of rip and read and second-tier stories > copied from that morning's New York Times. And what news there is > isn't trusted. Pew reports that only one-third of adults say they > believe most of what they see on ABC, CBS and NBC. With their chronic > sensationalism and their chronic ideological bias, the network news > divisions have forfeited trust. > > To spend time absorbing information that is both largely irrelevant > and untrustworthy is irrational--as now fully half of the American > public has figured out. > > Michael Kelly is the editor in chief of National Journal. > >--- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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