Since I beat up on the newspapers yesterday, I thought I would address the cultural wasteland of television news today. I find almost all arenas of TV news – local, national, cable, opinion – to be worse than trivial. Much of what is covered, and how it is covered, by television is actually detrimental to the well-being of our society. The only question is: Where to begin?

How about local news? I have seen the deterioration of local TV news in the Treasure Valley just in the last 15 years. The Boise stations now have followed the mantra of other big-city stations: “If it bleeds, it leads.” The local television news has become little more than a reading of the police blotter. Why is it that every petty crime is considered newsworthy? And if it involves sex, and especially sex with minors, it has to be covered ad nauseum. Do we really have to hear about some pervert who was arrested for trying to videotape up women’s skirts in the mall? Is that really important? Luckily, there are plenty of car accidents and house fires to fill in the rest of the newscast, not to mention a good 10 minutes on the weather. I feel sorry for the sports commentators. There are no local sport stories. (Sorry, Bronco Nation, but one good season in one sport by one institution does not make a good sports town.)

Where are the stories on issues that affect our lives? What are the state legislature, city councils and county commissioners doing? For that matter, what is going on in our schools? How is our tax money being spent? One story a month on these issues is not enough.

One can criticize the newspaper reporters in town but any of them is immensely more knowledgeable than any TV reporter at a local station. While a TV reporter may cover the state legislature a couple of days during the session, in between child molesting and car accident stories, reporters like Betsy Russell, John Miller, Nathaniel Hoffman, Jared Hopkins and Heath Druzin are spending every day of the session covering the developments of the state Legislature while also learning about the state government and how it works. Read their stories if you want to learn something yourself.

The national TV news media is not much better. The “evening” newscasts have one or two important stories then go soft with the human interest tripe. All TV news is nothing more than a reading of the headlines in the newspaper. They do not seem to have the time, inclination or ability to provide any real analysis of events or situations. Election campaigns are worse. There is never time to talk about issues (that is hard work and makes my head hurt), but there is always time for the horse race. Who is ahead? Who is gaining? Of course, the gaffe or screw-up is always the top story, but I will get to that on Thursday.

Maybe the worst of them all is cable news. Why do they believe that two people who disagree with each other screaming, interrupting and making unsubstantiated remarks is supposed to be enlightening? Oh wait, it isn’t supposed to be enlightening. It is supposed to entertain in a manner similar to the gladiators, circuses and feeding Christians to the lions did in Roman times. The problem, at least for me, is that very few of the people on cable news are entertaining. Keith Olbermann is witty but why does he have to interview the same hack journalists every night? Bill O’Reilly is so full of himself I may need to get a wide screen TV set in order for his head to fit. Lou Dobbs, that old fat blowhard, seems to think you can fill a whole show with nothing but xenophobia. Anderson Cooper, Megyn Kelly, Bill Hemmer and Campbell Brown are nice eye candy but that isn’t why I tune in.

Alas, there was only one truly intelligent TV show with a host who everyone knew was smarter than all of the viewers. I certainly do miss “Firing Line” and William F. Buckley.

Happy Earth Day.

Go Yotes.

Dr. Jasper M. LiCalzi
Professor
Department of Political Economy
The College of Idaho