Andy interviews Dan Rather here.
A brilliant interview that gets to the heart of where journalism is today. Snip:
Investigative reporting, that takes a hard news, capital I attitude is an endangered species. One reason it's gone out of fashion- when was the last time you saw an hour long investigative documentary that's on the big six news and broadcast stations? It's gone badly out of fashion. One reason is that the old business, the corporatization of news.
The companies that own the news outlets have gotten bigger and bigger, and news has gotten smaller and smaller.
The gap between the leadership of the corp and the news has gotten so wide as to there being little to no corporation. And the interests of the corps - they make airplane engines, billboards, etc- it's the corps that have gotten large, and more distant. Feeling most of the time they'd rather do away with it entirely, but they have business of their own to do in Washington - regulations eased or stopped. Example: TV stations want to own more stations with more coverage. They need regulations with the FCC, etc. You get the drift here.... Many of these corporate folks are decent people, but there mindset is do what's good for the corp as a whole.
Investigative reporting makes someone unhappy. And if youre' the head of one of these giant corps, a lobbyist will come to you - let me tell you, you guys in the news department are taking the hide off the people I need to work with.
It is something we all need to think about. I've invested my whole career in commercial journalistm, and I do believe competition leads to better journalism.
The real competition has narrowed in the way that some very large corps, maybe no more than five of them, control more than 80 percent of mass communication. They're not seeking more competition - not less. What we've seen in my lifetime. We're seeing increasingly less competition
... I raise the question, do we have as much competition in the major outlets that we need to be healthy. The press has a really important role to play as a watchdog. Not as an attack dog, which goes for the throat. A lapdog just crawls up in your lap to hear you say nice dog. But a good watch dog barks at everyone who's suspicious. Not that they'll always be right, but that they'll always be barking, and that's an important role.
Andy - More of this - you are a natural. And Mr Rather - you could be the Al Gore of journalism. Who better to tell it as it is? Out of pain comes true greatness!
Thank you both
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