All the news that fits our views

IT USED TO BE SO EASY. The division between news and editorial commentary was clear and unbreakable in the TV world of the 1960s. The news was presented by a reliable anchor (reaching its pinnacle with Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley-David Brinkley). If there was time, a commentator or analyst (such as Eric Severeid) would give his views on a specific news event or personality of the day. This all was serious business with little time for fluff and certainly no time for idle chit chat among on-air reporters. Most people made listening to the TV news and reading newspapers a daily habit, an important part of their need to be informed.

There never was much question about a news organization's integrity or responsibility. People accepted TV news as an honest attempt to bring them the important events of the day accurately and fairly. Although the news personalities soon were to become national celebrities, people accepted them first and foremost as newspeople, not entertainers or commentators.

Today, things are different. Surveys show that a large percentage of the American public now picks its news media on the basis of how closely they represent their personal and political views. The thin line between reporting news and editorial commentary is being obliterated. Such organizations as Fox News Channel make no bones about catering to their audience and often will comment, in strong and partisan terms, their opinions concerning the stories they are coveting. The major national media, including network news, are losing audiences to opinionated cable news channels, radio talk shows, and Internet websites that specialize in pleasing specific segments of the audience.

While throughout history people always have migrated to sources of information that reflected their ethnic, political, and social strata, the national TV newscasts in the 1950s and 1960s did a good job of bringing various segments of society together with neutral reporting of the day's events. We all basically heard the same information and made our decisions based on that information. Today, however, news producers, editors, and reporters are beginning to formal the news of the day to reinforce their audiences' biases.

Supporters of this movement talk about the historic lack of objectivity and truth in news coverage by the three networks and the national newspapers, citing a liberal bias. Yet, words such as "objectivity" and "truth" muddy the waters. There is no such thing as objectivity. We all are products of our backgrounds and prejudices. Good journalists realize their subjective feelings and try to overcome any bias by working very hard to be fair to all sides. By emphasizing fairness instead of objectivity, the news producer can create a finished product that, at the very least, tries to cover the day's events as completely as possible without personal opinion and commentary. There also is no such thing as truth. Anyone who has covered a fairly simple news story involving a crime knows that the police offer one scenario, the accused another, and that eyewitnesses rarely agree on what they saw. Each participant sees a different kind of truth. But one can argue for accuracy--checking each fact with multiple sources, using a variety of speakers to create as full a picture of what happened and how it happened.

One reason people are flocking to news sources that agree with their world views is that they repeatedly have been told by their ministers, politicians, and social commentators not to trust the so-called liberal news media. Most conservatives now ignore the traditional news media because they simply do not believe what they see and hear on the conventional TV newscasts or read in the national press.

"It will be a sad day when we trust only the media that voice our views," writes Newsweek columnist Robert J. Samuelson speaking to the concerns most journalists voice privately. The subhead in his column reads: "If it's partisanship that sells, then we'll slowly get more journalism that is more selective and more slanted, less reliable and less honest."

Those who run the news business shake their heads and blame the new technology, especially the Internet and cable TV, for this sorry state of affairs. Others blame the obliteration of the thin line between news and entertainment, and news and the interpretation of the news. Some blame the quest to lure young viewers who do not seem to care much about any news at all except the kind they grab from talk-show hosts and late-night comics.

There surely is enough blame to go around. Keep in mind, though, that this dilemma has been with us since this country was created--for most of American history, partisan journalists were the role, not the exception. Many journalists thought we had grown out of being spoon fed what we want to hear and that we were ready to accept a fair and accurate view of the events of the day without fear or prejudice. Apparently we still have a lot of growing up to do.