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Global Edition | Today Is Monday, March 22, 2010 |
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Global Edition | Today Is Monday, March 22, 2010 |
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NBC Nightly News Brian Williams
New York – Brian Williams’ Nightly News broadcast has recently begun to serve up interesting and colorful weather reports. Is this a responsible way for a flagship network news broadcast to operate?
You’ve heard it before: The impact of GE’s profitability at all costs strategy at NBC Universal has proven devastating to one of broadcast journalism’s most prestigious journalistic institutions. While NBC News’ entertainment personalities, Brian Williams, Meridith Viera, Matt Lauer, Lester Holt and others earn multi-million dollar salaries, NBC News journalists, the people who do the real work, have suffered from cutbacks, layoffs, bureau closings and downsizing. Newer and cheaper help, some qualified, some not, are now the order of the day at NBC News.
One need look no further than the cutbacks in news gathering resources in the last decade to see why NBC News is little more than a shadow of its once proud heritage. Under GE, NBC News is so crippled that it can no longer fulfill its once proud public service mission. The cutbacks, and transfer of resources to developing an Internet presence, has effectively brought NBC news to an ignominious end. At the least, NBC News is no longer a world-class news organization. Worse, under Steve Capus’ leadership NBC News is no longer a responsible citizen.
The emphasis on profitability, not public service, or probative journalism has badly distorted NBC’s news values, mission and standards.
Today, Steve Capus’ News Division is highly profitable, thanks to its many entertainment programs including Today and Dateline. Tim Russert’s Meet The Press and NBC Nightly news are lesser profit centers due to the costs of news gathering and production. Under obsessive profit demands by General Electric, NBC Universal, Bob Wright and Steve Capus, NBC News is little more than a shadow of its former greatness. Just tune in and you’ll find that NBC Nightly News is increasingly substituting low cost content for more costly to acquire legitimate news.
Was any other organization doing so, it might be covered on Dateline, or Jeff Immelt made to explain himself to Tim Russert.
Beginning during November sweeps, weather became a Nightly News staple. It’s not included every night — not yet, anyway — but then it’s bound to snow again this winter. Spring offers plenty of inexpensive storm coverage, summer can be filled with heat wave and drought stories, and then there are the never ending fires in the west during autumn.
We don’t know which bureau or which reporters were terminated to fund WeatherPlus, but popinjay weather is certainly more profitable than responsibly covering the significant changes in Baghdad. How long before NBC News pulls Richard Engel out of Baghdad? Or lays-off Andrea Mitchell, or Tom Aspell, or Rehema Ellis? Who needs real journalists if you can put on weather, interesting information, feature stories and lets pretend news?
Bill Karins, NBC Weather Plus
Weather is local news, for what’s happening in Wichita is of little importance if you live in Los Angeles. But weather is visually engaging, the people are attractive and there’s never any images of starving children in Darfur or wounded American soldiers trying to put their lives back together. Compared to the boring, even depressing news content, weather is — let us say — less stressful. Besides, the colorful graphics are animated — as is the glib weatherman gymnastically gesticulating and smiling.
So now we know. When you’re trying to produce a news program without spending any money, weather is one way to entertain while concealing a mounting lack of responsible, probative and relevant journalistic resources. The message Steve Capus and Jeff Immelt are delivering their countrymen is that saving money for General Electric by pretending to cover salient news makes a weather segment acceptable reportorial content at NBC News. So, in recent weeks we’ve been treated to affable Bill Karins sitting across the anchor desk explaining to America why it is snowing in December.
