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I’ll admit it. I was a toddler news junkie.
It all began in the 1950s, listening to the news after dinner every night with Granddaddy. His favorite radio newsman was Gabriel Heatter, and he liked him because of his sign-on: “There’s good news tonight!”
My Granddad said Mr. Heatter, during the darkest days of WWII, was always optimistic and uplifting. I was only four or five and didn’t understand much of the news, but I loved listening to the radio, sitting at the big kitchen table with my Granddad.
My parents were always fans of Edward R. Murrow, and – as a kid – I learned to recognize his sign-off, mainly on TV: “Good night and good luck.”
My folks also often listened to Walter Winchell, who began his radio newscasts with the sounds of a clicking telegraph key, making what came next sound immediate (just off the wire) and important as he said: "Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press!"
In elementary school, when my dad drove me back to school after lunch in the 1950s (my school didn’t have a lunchroom until I was in fourth grade), he listened to newscaster Paul Harvey, who started each show with, “Hello, Americans, this is Paul Harvey. Stand by for news!”
On summer mornings, before the game shows and soap operas, I joined my grandmother, who habitually watched “Dave Garroway, founder of NBC’s Today. He was known for his caricatured iconic bowtie and eyeglasses. Straightforward and no drama, Garroway signed off with a single word: “Peace.”
I had watched Walter Cronkite’s family history shows on Sunday afternoons in the ‘50s – You Are There! This show ran from 1953 to 1972, and I watched almost every Sunday as a kid because I could understand Cronkite’s simple language as he served as broadcaster for past events, like the assassination of Julius Cesar or the crash of the Hindenburg… and he ended his newscasts with, “And that’s the way it is.”
One of my favorite news teams in the 1960s was Chet Huntley and Davis Brinkley on the Huntley-Brinkley Report – and it was probably their signoff I liked the most, no matter how bad the news was from the war in Vietnam: It went, "Good night, Chet. Good night, David. And good night, for NBC News."
More recently, as an avid watcher of “Meet the Press,” the late Tim Russert left no doubt about his loyalties when he signed off each Sunday morning with: “Go Bills!”
As a news junkie, I was totally caught up with the wall-to-wall news when cable news came to television in the 1980s. However, as I soon realized, there was more repetition than I could enjoy, I also knew – from my advertising classes – when you hear something five times, you begin believing it to be the truth – even if it’s not true.
I also began to notice…cable news covers every little detail of an event until another big event occurs. In my opinion – and this is only one person’s opinion – when something terrible happens to one or many human beings, news coverage of the perpetrator often makes them sound something like a rock star. If I was in charge of a cable news channel, covering a massacre like the one in Uvalde, I would make sure my anchors or on-site reporters never uttered the killer’s name, whether they were alive or dead.
Going further, I wouldn’t cover the killer’s first court appearance and, instead, I would only report trial dates and the final verdict. In my mind, they deserve nothing more. Skip the arrest, the perp walk to the court house, the comment about the killer wearing a bullet-proof vest or the virtual appearance of the killer in the courtroom. I do have faith our court system will fairly decide guilt or innocence and will sentence these killers to the appropriate punishment. But I don’t want to see these monsters who take numerous lives.
Here’s my third and final fear about how cable news operates. They cover every nook and cranny of a story until viewers practically memorize every detail. Reporters relentlessly interview grieving family members, the neighbor next door and the perp’s Sunday school teacher. But then another event shows up on the cable news radar. Immediately, every focus retreats from the murders in Uvalde. Some reporters have even had time to learn the correct pronunciation of “Uvalde.” But after days of wall-to-wall coverage of the Uvalde massacre, our focus suddenly moves on to the next wildfire or Congressional vote or Presidential trip.
In essence, cable news “forgets” about Uvalde and goes, full force, toward the next big news scoop…and unless we realize our attention is being refocused, away from something we care about, we – like the rest of the cable news channel viewers – may forget, too soon, about the carnage in Uvalde because the news has moved on.
Should we allow this manipulation of our attention? Or, a better question might be, “Have we become so complacent that we allow news channels to dictate where we focus our attention, our empathy, even our values?”
This thought has definitely given me pause. As a free and independent American, I wonder why I’ve allowed myself to be “told” what to focus on and care about? Am I happy the cable news cycle decides for me the most important focus for my attention?
Of course, I may be the only person in Drippin’ to be thinking of the power of cable news…but nonetheless, I feel I am being programmed in a way that’s not okay with me. The impact of cable news may not be a problem for anyone else, but it's something to consider, even for a moment.
