It's getting more and more difficult for PBS to pretend The NewsHour is about news. Which is really too bad because we were among those -- until recently -- advocating for PBS to expand The NewsHour to Saturdays and Sundays. But these days, we're scratching our heads.
We never saw The NewsHour as "the people's news"or all that expansive. It has narrow point A and narrow point B that it will note in each story. That will pass for 'balance.' That has been the case throughout the program's long history and it remains the case today. But you could pretend it was news and about the news.
These days, the show's gone to the dogs and Gwen's usually the one leading the trot to the kennels. Friday, she demonstrated that yet again.
The year, for any confused, is 2011 and, no, it is not a presidential election year. 15 months from now, Americans who elect to vote will have to determine who they will support.
But there was Gwen, on The NewsHour, in Iowa, yacking away, offering nothing of value, nothing of insight, nothing that qualified as news to anyone not submitting to a middle school newspaper. "As political spectacles go, it was hard to look away," Gwen insisted and apparently NewsHour producers shared her fascination with train wrecks because they let her go on and on. Her segment lasted 11 minutes and 24 seconds. [A NewsHour friend insists to us that it was two segments. No, it wasn't. It was Gwen's segment of an intro to her canned piece and then her wrap while 'joshing' with Margaret Warner.]
Eleven minutes and 24 seconds? Of the network broadcast news programs, CBS Evening News is the most likely to air a lengthy segment but almost nine minutes qualifies as long for that program. Gwen was given 11 minutes and 24 seconds of air time and what was the takeaway?
Apparently that she had eaten a fried Twinkie at the Iowa State Fair because that's pretty much the only fact she provided in her entire segment.
It's really amazing and, yes, appalling, that you could have watched the entire segment, all eleven-plus minutes of it, and know not one issue the candidate believed in or was opposed to. Instead you had Rick Santorum's soundbyte where he said, "You need leaders. You need people who are good at leadership, not showmanship." And you got the soundbyte with Herman Cain stating, "America -- America has got to learn how to take a joke."
Eating up eleven minutes of time, the segment didn't tell viewers one thing about the candidates. To be really clear, we'd rather watch anything -- how about actual news -- than gas baggery about an election that won't event take place this year. As for the silly Iowa State Fair straw poll, it's only taken place since 1999. Saturday was only the sixth time the straw poll's been done. And out of the five previous times, it's 'winner' has ended up the GOP presidential nominee only twice (1995 with Bob Dole and 1999 with Bully Boy Bush). Gwen didn't share with viewers any of those actual facts but then, if she had, it would have only made wasting eleven minutes on the 'story' all the more obviously stupid. Norah O'Donnell did manage to share the statistics on CBS Evening News. And she did that in a report that lasted 3 minutes -- that includes her exchange with anchor Scott Pelley at the end of her segment.
Gwen gave Ron Paul a token mention, at the very end. (Paul: "I do know that you can make the difference. And one vote in a straw vote in a situation like this is very, very valuable. It gets national attention. So, what happens on Saturday can really give us a boost.") For those who mistake that as progress, let's note reality. Judy Woodruff interviewed Ron Paul for The NewsHour last month. For over a week, that interview was the most popular feature at The NewsHour website each day. They have never seen numbers like that before. So, yes, they will give Ron Paul his token mention now.
People learned about Ron Paul's political stands and beliefs in Judy's segment. They didn't learn a damn thing from Gwen's so-called 'report.' To have that kind of time and tell nothing about a candidate's position is not news. It's infotainment, it's garbage, it's crap and a lot stronger words which we can't use at this site. But it is not and it is never news.
Let's break away from Gwen and company for a moment to explain to you some key events (not all) that were in the news cycle on Friday.
* Protests continued in Syria on Friday with over 10,000 people taking to the streets.
* Protests took place outside the United Nations Headquarters (Thursday) with cries to shut down the Indian Point nuclear plant.
* At Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, Native Americans are protesting efforts to turn the land sacred to them into a ski resort.
* The United States Postal Service wants to cut 120,000 jobs.
* The United States Postal Service wants to stop providing federal health and retirement programs.
* The Iraq War continued.
* The Afghanistan War continued.
* The Libyan War continued.
* The government of Italy agreed to austerity measures
* On Saturday, Fidel Castro would turn 85.
We've left out the big story of Friday. We'll come back to it. But of the news above, The NewsHour covered Syria in a headline, the US Postal Service in a report and that was it. (We're being very kind and avoiding what The NewsHour so crassly called an "honor role.") You missed out on a hell of a lot Friday if you watched The NewsHour for news but you did learn Gwen Ifill ate a fried Twinkie.
After wasting everyone's time with 11 minutes and 24 seconds of saying nothing about the GOP field for next year's presidential nomination, they were back to the topic with the bizarro version of Shields and Yarnell -- Shields and Lowry. While Shields and Yarnell never spoke, Mark Shields and whatever partner he's with (Friday it was Rich Lowry) can't stop yacking. And for nine minutes and 27 seconds they yacked about the GOP field -- repeating the same bromides Gwen did. 20 minutes and 50 seconds were wasted out of the 'hour' (it was actually 54 minutes -- they have their commercials to show even on 'non-commercial' PBS). 33 minutes and 10 seconds of the program, minus opening theme and end credits, were left for news out of the so-called NewsHour.
The big story Friday was a court verdict on ObamaCare. Let's review the way these verdicts have been reported this year on The NewsHour.
January 31st, Judge Roger Vinson of the Federal District Court in Pensacola, Florida issued a ruling and this is how The NewsHour reported it:
A federal judge in Florida has declared the national health-care reform law unconstitutional. The decision today came in a lawsuit by 26 states. They challenged the mandate that most Americans must buy health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty. So far two federal courts have ruled against the mandate. Two others have upheld it. The issue is expected to wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
June 29th, a verdict was rendered on ObamaCare by the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. This is how The NewsHour reported it:
President Obama won an important legal victory today on his health care overhaul. A federal appeals court in Cincinnati ruled the government does have the right to mandate that Americans buy health insurance. A number of other legal challenges to the mandate are still working their way through the federal court system. The issue is expected to end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Friday, ObamaCare didn't sail through. Here's how The NewsHour reported it:
A federal appeals court today ruled Americans do not have to buy health insurance. That mandate is a central provision of the president's health care overhaul. The three-judge panel in Atlanta voted 2-1 against it. But the judges ruled the rest of the law may go forward. In a statement, White House Spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter criticized the court's conclusion on the individual mandate. She said, "We strongly disagree with this decision, and we are confident it will not stand."
Wow. When ObamaCare loses, when judges say "NO," The NewsHour needs to quote another opinion. But when it wins, The NewsHour feels no such need to 'round out' the story. And when it loses at the start of the year, The NewsHour felt the need to tell you it had won two verdicts as well. But when it loses, Friday, they don't feel the need to tell you this is the third court verdict against ObamaCare.
The 11 Circuit's verdict Friday was news as was their finding that Commerce Clause of the Constitution does not give Congress the power to "mandate that individuals enter into contracts with private insurance companies for the purchase of an expensive product from the time they are born until the time they die." That should have resulted in a news segment.
We grasp that the CPB has allowed 'reporters' for both NPR and PBS to 'invest' themselves in Obama and to 'divest' themselves of objectivity. That was very clear Friday on All Things Considered (NPR) when Nina Totenberg 'reported' (commented) on the verdict, "Federal Judge Roger Vinson of Florida ruled that the mandate could not be separated from the rest of this bill, which has other provisions lots of Americans like and that the mandate was to help pay for it."
And we're back to narrow point A and narrow point B. We're back to the echo machine for those in power to convey the message to the people. It's not really news but it can be news-like. In fact, more and more we think the program needs a new slogan: "PBS' The NewsHour! So slick you won't believe it's not news!" And who knows, maybe future history text books actually will focus on what Gwen Ifill ate at the fair.
