Dog Bites Man

In journalism schools the concept of News Value is illustrated like this: It's not news when a dog bites a man. It's news when a man bites a dog.

Keeping that in mind while watching the post-debate coverage of the broadcast and cable nets, it's vivid illustration of the fact that the "news business" has almost nothing to do with news. It is, instead, entirely about the generation of a news-like substance that reminds me of the cakes I used to make when my kids were in Cub Scouts. One year, we made a cake that looked like a pizza. Another year we made a cake that looked like a bowl of dog food, with Milk Duds as the kibble. The cakes looked like somehting else, but they were stiill cakes.

Next debate, watch the coverage of the spinners. It looks just like news. There are serious reporters shoving microphones into the faces of serious interviewees, who stand straight-up and talk about the fate of the nation. Except that there's not a single man biting a dog anywhere in the coverage. Democrats say Kerry did just great. Republicans insist that The President delivered a knock-out punch. There was no news value to be had on any of the nets.

This is the biggest, best-financed, most professional journalism machine in the history of the world, at a critical moment in our history, on a night when public interest is high and audiences are large just before a Presidential election...and that journalism machine walks through the coverage using the same template it would use if it were covering a Congressman's speech in front of the Rotary Club of Bettendorf, Iowa. Get a Republican reaction...get a Democrat reaction...get the story filed and head to the bar.

I watched for a half-hour -- it was all I could take, and The Daily Show beckoned -- and heard not a single question that was in any way a surprise. I longed for a reporter to walk up to, for example, Karen Hughes, and ask: "What would the President have to do during a debate like this to make you think he hadn't performed well?" Or maybe someone could ask a question that had some substance, like: "Senator Kerry talked about summit on Iraq. Does the Senator really believe a summit would help and, if he does, why?"

Or how bout this: Build a round table surrounded by ejector seats. Get a bunch of knowledgable people together to talk about the policies of the two candidates. Look at them in depth and anyone who comes even close to partisan spin gets shot out of the studio like a rocket.

Hah! They don't do policy because it's boring, and even critical information doesn't make the cut when it's boring. This is showbusiness, not news.

So we get questions asked by reporters who have a two question repertoire: "How do you feel?" and "Who won?" The first for wrenching human stories, the second for politics. No news here: The parents of the dead child feel bad, and party loyalists think the party's guy did great, just great.

It's appalling how bad television "journalism" is.