Pennysaver

Is everybody rowing in the same direction?

 I wonder to myself almost daily at work. Broadly speaking television/streaming news media truly feels like the left hand never knows what the right is doing any more. The disconnects between editorial and production, lack of institutional knowledge that was lost during covid to WFH & retirement, and of course the biggest mistake of all- not hiring enough staff to cover the current work while continually adding more.

           News outlets seem to be growing desperate to keep their heads above water in a time where we know that more and more viewers are getting news from social media like TikTok ; and that social media sites, while a great place to “find ones tribe” as I’ve told students, are also a place that often become an echo chamber when one ONLY communicates with ones tribe. Fringe ideas are easily shared and social media addiction make it easy to find ourselves delving deeper and deeper into partisan and fringe rabbit holes. While we, and the POTUS complain that "democracy is at risk" because of hyper partisanship it’s worth noting that as traditional news outlets lean more and more into political programming we have very likely brought this upon ourselves. With the rare exceptions including the war in Ukraine, most of what I have seen covered in the last month has been the Georgia election, the Pennsylvania election, the Wisconsin election, and occasionally Arizona, Ohio and Michigan elections. Mainstream outlets are hyper focused on the midterms to the detriment of all other news topics. However it is pretty clear if you’re paying any attention globally that this hyper partisan phenomena and decline in our basic ability to have conversations and debates on a human level is not just happening here: Great Britain has had 3 Prime Ministers in as many months, the former Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, was assassinated not long ago, Brazil’s incoming new President, Lula, (a former president) was in prison for corruption and money laundering for a year and a half and the President he is replacing, Jair Bolsanaro, has previously encouraged political violence, and has endorsed election fraud conspiracy theories, Israel just RE-ELECTED, after dumping him for a bit, Bibi Netanyahu while he is fighting corruption charges-a dramatic return to power that some thought Boris Johnson might also make in GB, and let’s not forget the assassination attempt on the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Kahn, just last week. My point is- hey maybe NASA shouldn’t be working so hard on figuring out how to knock asteroids off course…

            Many people may not even know about these international stories if they only get their news from social media, or mainstream cable, streaming, or broadcast media because our executive producers and network executives are OBSESSED with American politics and they can’t always see the forrest through the trees. Even when they are gung ho for a story the refusal to put PROFESSIONAL RESOURCES in play is just not something we see happening at this point. Covid changed things- of course- and viewers dealt with it because news anchors working from home and reporters alone in the field were meant to be temporary. But if the reporter is going to continue to stay at home, Skype in to their live shot, look and sound like crap, and only talk about Herschel Walker….why wouldn’t a viewer turn to TikTok where some young creator at least took the time to make their video look professional and talk about a local crime or road repairs. If it’s going to look and sound like crap and ONLY discuss partisan politics anyway why would a viewer turn to a professional? They wouldn’t.

           According to the NY Post ,Chris Cuomo, who is being paid less than he was at CNN but still more than anyone reading this (estimates 1 mil a year) is blaming everyone but himself it seems for crappy ratings on the network. In particular he’s blaming his time-slot…. In a world where streaming is king I don’t think we can blame time slots anymore. Yet, despite questions about ethical journalism (helping his brother) and sexual misconduct allegations, the folks at NewsNation thought “hey let’s pay this guy.” Les Moonves AND CBS are on the hook for a $30 million settlement with the NY attorney general over his sexual misconduct and the alleged attempts to cover it up. So another 30 million that could be paying talent, engineers, journalists, directors, producers….corporations may not BE people, but they sure do affect people.

In both of these cases it becomes pretty clear what these media companies value, and it doesn’t seem to be the people who work for them. CNN+ hired like crazy this time last year, only to fold and layoff a large chunk of those hired, ABC, NBC, CBS everyone is downsizing their production staffs. Post covid it is incredibly rare to see a news guest (be it an unaffiliated reporter, a talking head, an expert, and sometimes even those on the payroll of the network) in any type of remote studio, more often they are brought in via Skype and Zoom- which is fine in a pinch but putting a lot of operators out of work, not to mention it usually looks and sounds like crap.

There is also danger reporters are facing by not having a crew with them in the field, like this one who was hit by a car while reporting on severe weather. Generally networks are still sending team to war zones of course, but that doesn't mean that every reporter and crew member NOT stationed in Kyiv is safe. Yes, there is risk affiliated with most jobs, but when the risk is increased substantially because of cost cutting that negatively impacts both safety AND product we need to start asking ourselves why these executives are being so penny wise, pound foolish. Having even one other person out in the field with you is safer (think the buddy system!) and it increases the value of your output. Anyone who has tried to do it all by themselves knows the value of a second pair of hands and eyes, not to mention the value of having someone to collaborate with on ideas.

I really can't say what is going through the minds of network executives right now. I get it, they're trying to save their own jobs in a time where people are doing more with less. But there are smart places to cut back- sure maybe some people can work from home a few days a week, or we can renegotiate some contracts of top tier talent (are viewers really that enthralled by the name on the nightly newscast? I don't think so)- but when we cut back on things that help our broadcasts look and sound good, when we stop replacing writers when they leave companies and just pile more work on people, when we can't even be bothered to provide coffee or any type of morale boost for teams who have worked throughout the duration of the pandemic and every never ending news cycle leading up to it and after it...why wouldn't viewers go somewhere else? And why wouldn't the people working their butts off for no respect start thinking about moving their expertise to a social media outlet, or even leaving the industry entirely- it's happening people ARE starting to quit and go back to school for something else, or just find something with a better life balance. The industry is going to be losing great talent in writing, in journalism, and in production if they don't start seeing the atmosphere they're creating. The easiest way for them to see it by the way- is by looking at their on-air product, and by having real open conversations with their staffs and taking criticism and ideas from them.

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Below look at some terrible shots from various productions because of cutbacks.

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