CommentaryTV, Willing Willie, the Public Sphere
The “dumbing down” of network television audiences goes on even in the non-entertainment programs. News shows no longer have one segment for news about entertainment and show business. These splice entertainment fillers into a news program, like a clubhouse sandwich. News production has taken on the zing and punch of shows designed more to keep children’s attention.
A critic of television news coined the word “info-tainment,” describing how the news product also had to be entertaining.
The spectrum of TV offerings demonstrates the media dynamics which employs factors involved in popular appeal (pretty faces, attractive sets, zingers) which also affects the choice of how much and what kind of news and information gets into the program. The stream of sound, images, words, and gestures all contribute to the making of news as entertainment and entertainment as news.
TV5, in an attempt to lead WW’s audience for their news show, placed the news program at an earlier slot, a move to cut down the news audience of other channels. But the effect could be a general reduction of the news audience. Another huge dumbing down.
Television, more than any other media, determines the character of our public forums and the level of engagement in the public square. We draw from television an understanding of ourselves, our aspirations, our desires and preferences, our ideas and insights—or the lack of these.
But this could not happen in a system that is designed mainly for business profit. And television business is big business. For television to serve the higher purpose of education and learning, of upliftment and genuinely great laughs, those engaged in television need to get their faces out of the money trough.
And since the advertisers have pronounced themselves as wanting TV quality, we should force them to continue the withdrawal of support until they have seen real improvement. In fact, we should ask them to lead the way out of this wasteland.
Mass media can be many things. The huge leaps in communication technology have not been matched with the kind of thought that such developments deserve. We move willy-nilly from one new gadget to another. This kind of thoughtlessness has brought us to this sorry state.
It is time to review our options, because we have them. Because our system prevents government from interfering with the media, the advertisers should take this cue from the public, not just to appease the critics, but to engage them in raising the standards for television for the masses.
The Constitution protects the media from government interference. Unfortunately, after some 25 years of press and media freedom, we have so very little to show for it.
It may mean that the media have not been deserving of such protection.
Melinda Quintos de Jesus is the executive director of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility.
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