By Tanya Batson, Staff ReporterIS THE news simply becoming another form of 'Reality Television', another way to keep those of the MTV generation aptly entertained?
This question arose during the debate on the value of beauty to television journalists, titled 'The Television Journalist: Is it What We Look Like or What We Say?', which was a part of the Women in Film and Television International (WIFTI) Summit 2002 dubbed 'One Pot Stew'.
The summit, ably hosted by the Jamaican chapter of WIFTI, took place at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Montego Bay from last Thursday to Saturday, and featured three days of discussions and movie screenings brought by delegates from all over the globe.
The discussion first broached the issue of the fall of television with the chairman of the board of Television Two in Denmark, Lone Kuhlman's presentation. At the end of her presentation, Kuhlman noted that she does feel some amount of optimism about women's fate in television. She, however, finished up this statement with the words, "I'm not very optimistic on the part of television."
She explained that internationally, television is 'down the drain'. This opinion is due to what she perceives as an increasing trend to make news more entertaining or sexy. "You see the most extraordinary things leading the news," she said. "Instead of serious news coverage." She noted that 'frivolous' news was taking over, while serious news has greater trouble getting funding.
The final panellist, Kate Adie, Chief Correspondent with the British Broadcasting Corporation, agreed with Kuhlman's statements. She pointed out that the position of women in television was currently neither at its best, nor is the equality of the sexes much better. Adie's main point, however, was that what journalists need to concentrate on is not an argument about 'preferred looks', as this is a battle which cannot be won, and thus should not be fought.
She pointed out instead, that what needs to be tackled is the commercialisation of the news. She argued that it is this commercialisation that is allowing the news to become an adjunct of the entertainment industry. It is an unavoidable trend, she argued, and thus should be met and dealt with because simply sitting in an 'ivory tower' and being creative will not get one's programme made.
Adie later pointed out that she does not believe that the major news networks are involved in a conspiracy to commercialise the news. She believes that it is due to the fact that the major conglomerates now own news houses. For example, CNN is owned by AOL Time Warner, while Disney owns ABC.
"Television has grown up higgly-piggly across the world," she said. However, it is now a product like any other, or as she so eloquently put it, like 'cat feed', having moved into the business world.
She noted that despite the different traditions in which the television news world may have in individual countries, the conventions of business, such as efficiency and effectiveness, but most of all, profitability, have become global. As such they are being applied to everything, including the creative realms.
"Once you move, television in particular all kinds of television making, towards the business world, you start to apply the rules of business," she explained. As a result, the focus moves from the merit of the piece to 'bottom-line, profit'. News is no less immune.
Adie spoke of attempts to 'bulk out' news, so that it can fit into 24 hours for seven days, without paying the necessary investment to get fresh news every 10 minutes. She remarked that techniques used included repetition, bringing in experts to comment, and having call-ins. "The whole thing begins to bulk out," she explained. "It's like sausages that are made in England, there's no meat in it. There's a whole lot of stuff in that sausage but no meat."
The experienced correspondent further discussed this 'sausage' effect. She noted that in addition to not wanting to spend the billions of dollars it would take to constantly create 'fresh news', the next step is for the television networks to save money.
Adie argued that the result is that traditional reporting is replaced by 'talking heads', also called 'Our Man In....'.
Having herself reported on news from all over the world, (she has won awards for her coverage of Northern Ireland, the American bombing of Tripoli, and the student uprising in China in 1989), Adie explained the kind of investment that properly covering an piece of news takes.
She said that in addition to the cost of sending a team to the site in the most efficient manner, which is also costly, feeding them and allowing them time to get a real sense of what is taking place, the network may get only two to three minutes of news from 24 hours of work.
As a result, 'the accountants' suggest that it would be more profitable if rather than going out to seek news, the correspondents simply stand by the satellite and talk. She illustrated her point by stating that most of the news coverage of the bombing in Afghanistan was done from the airbase in Kabul.
"You get more out of people if they yap!" Adie said, "Rather than going to see, evaluate, get relevant, significant facts, and distil them properly, in a significant order for the audience." This is the economic impetus which drives the changes in how news, once thought to be a sacred thing, is presented.
