Those of us of a certain age and taste grew up with Don Henley playing in the background, either with The Eagles or by himself during his solo career. We wouldn't cross the street to hear his political views, but we'd drive 500 miles to hear him sing. (And have.) The man might have the best voice for music since Roy Orbison.
We happened to be driving to the newsroom the other day when "Dirty Laundry" popped up on the radio. Ah, the I Can't Stand Still album, one of our favorites. A couple of songs on the album were written after Don Henley had a run-in with the law in the early 1980s, and the tabloid press hounded him. "Dirty Laundry" may be the best song ever about journalism, at least the yellow, television-entertainment version.
Most folks would tell you that they also hold some skepticism toward networks like CNN or Fox News--or both. And for good reason. We have a habit of watching their websites after big splashes in the news, just for scientific reasons. If a story casts the president in a bad light, CNN.com is sure to have a half-dozen stories covering it from every angle down the top left side of its front page. It might all but ignore a story that suggests a presidential "win," whatever that is.
Same goes for Fox News' website, only in reverse. Any scrap of information that benefits Donald Trump, the network's website will play it for all it's worth. And bury big news about his flip-flops or missteps. It's like CNN and Fox News are living in different worlds. Which, of course, they are.
A Gallup poll released in October found that 45 percent of Americans have a fair amount of trust in mass media. That's up from a critical low of 32 percent in 2016. Trust rising 13 percent over two years is an impressive feat. But if you look back at Gallup polls on the media in 1976 when Gerald Ford occupied the White House, 72 percent of Americans found mass media to be fairly trustworthy.
What does all this have to do with Mr. Henley? His first Top 40 hit as a solo artist was all about the media and was released just two years after CNN went on the air as the first 24/7 news network. If you're a fan of the classic rock radio stations all over the land, you'll know the lyrics by heart. ("Can we film the operation?/ Is the head dead yet?/ You know the boys in the newsroom/ Got a running bet./ Get the widow on the set!/ Give us dirty laundry!")
This song came decades before the invention of social media and the great societal divide our nation finds itself in now. But maybe the song is more valid today than in 1982. We have not one but several 24/7 news networks in our country now, and we can see how people get fed up with the current template for news coverage. It goes like this:
Tiny nugget about President Trump, good, bad or in-between g One or two reporters repeat the tiny nugget of information and other political or business leaders give their opinion on the nugget g A table of commentators analyzes the nugget for an hour or two with commercial breaks in-between selling catheters or gold g Program ends, and the anchor hands off the nugget to another talking head who repeats the process for the next 2-3 hours.
That's all day, every day, occasionally swapping out Mr. Trump for whatever divisive topic is hot on Twitter or Facebook, perhaps some video of Catholic high school boys and a Native American protester facing off. It's a lot like talk radio, only with pictures. Just find something that outrages and pound it until the ratings needle starts to fall, then find another outrageous topic.
Newspaper folks have been looking down our noses at broadcasters since at least Mr. Marconi came along. But back in the day of soaps, piano concertos, and Little Orphan Annie, the broadcasters didn't play much of a role in this nation's political divide. Nowadays, they are contributing to it.
And that can't be healthy for the republic.
Editorial on 01/29/2019