David Susskind once said , " if you put an artichoke on TV after a couple of weeks that artichoke will become famous." Unfortunately there are way too many artichokes on TV news today and not enough journalists. I spent 16 years as a TV news anchor in various small to mid-size markets(Salt Lake City was the biggest market where I was a weekend anchor). Although I enjoyed the work, I never really enjoyed the people I worked with in the newsroom. I found a majority of them to be ego driven, back-stabbing kiss asses. More after the orange teleprompter.
This is why the Brian Williams fiasco comes as no surprise to me. To get where he is today, he had to kiss ass and brown nose his way to the top. You cannot rock the corporate boat and remain a network new anchor ( just ask Soledad O' Brien). On the way to the top, as a tv new anchor, you get treated like a celebrity and if you are not level headed you start to believe it. My very first tv job i was a sports anchor at a local cbs affiliate in Santa Maria, California. In that small town i was considered a local celebrity. I was asked to judge beauty contests, participate in parades, speak at the Kiwanis club etc. Pretty heady stuff for a 26 year-old. That is just at a small little station. I can't even begin to imagine what it is like for a network new anchor. And there-in lies the problem. As David Susskind said the very nature of television transforms the orordinary into a celebrity. Instead of presenting the news you become a part of the news.
Every TV station I worked for hired a consulting firm to tell the owners how to run a news operation( I guess they lacked the confidence to do it themselves). Invariably these so-called consultants would tell the reporters and anchors to involve themselves in the story. Show yourself in personal interaction with the people involved, you know become part of the story. I always felt uncomfortable doing this. The consultants figure by doing this it shows your personal side and viewers can relate to you as a real person and not just a news reader which will result in higher ratings or so the theory goes. So, instead of reporting on a helicopter taking RPG fire, you can report on your own helicopter taking fire. How much more exciting is that! Or instead of hearing from a news presenter about rampaging gangs during hurricane Katrina, how about hearing from a news anchor who was actually confronted by these ruffians. The pressure to be a part of the news you are reporting on becomes too great. So when your involvement just isn't sensational enough, well you got to make it more sensational.
The problem with TV news ,from the smallest stations to the network news desks is quite simply they are celebrities and part of the story. In network news it is worse of course because of the ridiculous salaries ( 10 million to read a teleprompter)! With that kind of money they hob nob with the very people they are supposed to be reporting on! I don't know what the solution is. Maybe there should be just a voice over presentation of the news where you just see the video and hear a voice but no news anchor. I don't know, but I do know that this is no way to have an informed electorate.
The most enjoyable time I had as a tv news anchor was my four years with the CBS affiliate in Monterey. We were a small station with a great staff ( no back stabbing), and we just reported the news. There was a small town in our viewing area called Castroville and guess what? It was called the artichoke capitol of the world. Go figure! David Susskind would be proud!
For those curious , just a small snipped of our newscast circa 1985...https://www.youtube.com/...
Just to let you know I am not embellishing my story....