Stay Classy, Cable News: Turn Elsewhere If You Want To Be Informed

I shouldn’t have been surprised when I started squirming in my seat during the movie Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. It wasn’t just for the reasons I was expecting – not the over-acting of Will Ferrell or the ridiculous raunchy lines coming out of Paul Rudd’s mouth.

Unfortunately, it was the characters’ realization that their news show – which was on at 2 a.m. on a new cable network back in the 1970s – would get higher ratings if they just glossed over all the important, yet boring news stories, and told everyone what they wanted to hear. Each episode ended with Ferrell’s character Ron Burgundy saying “Don’t just have a great night, have an American night.”

Aye, yai, yai.

Then there was the scene when Burgundy decided to be the first show to broadcast a local car chase live, in an effort to take away attention from an important and much more relevant interview on a competing channel. That is broadcast journalism at its most sensational and lowest point.

You guessed it – their plan worked. The show became the most popular on the network, and changed the face of America’s broadcast news landscape. Yes, I know, it’s a movie. But, if it wasn’t a great personification of how actual cable “news” shows impact American opinion, I don’t know a better way to explain it.

Maybe a 2012 survey from Farleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey will help. “What you know depends on what you watch: Current events knowledge across popular news sources” was a follow-up survey from the university’s 2011 PublicMind™ poll and showed that National Public Radio (NPR), Sunday morning political talk shows and even The Daily Show with Jon Stewart were more informative news sources than partisan outlets, such as Fox News, CNN and MSNBC.

In fact, out of 1,185 people surveyed nationwide, those who identified as having watched only one of those political news sources was less likely to correctly answer a series of national and international current events questions than someone who identified as having watched no news at all.

The average person could answer 1.8 out of four questions correctly on international news, and 1.6 out of five questions on domestic matters.

The results showed that people who didn’t watch any news at all could, on average, correctly answer 1.22 of the questions about domestic politics, either by guessing or from their existing knowledge.

Here’s the real kicker – someone who only watched Fox News (on average) could only answer 1.04 national questions correctly. NPR consumers got 1.51 questions correct and Daily Show viewers got 1.42 questions correct. The findings were similar for international questions.

Additionally, the survey noted the impact of the “ideologically-based” sources on the audience that consumed the information. Liberals, for example, did better on the questions when gleaning information from MSNBC; same with conservatives with Fox News. But, moderates and liberals who watch Fox News were worse at answering the questions.

Dan Cassino, political scientist and poll analyst, was quoted in the survey about the impact of the partisan sources on news knowledge.

“Ideological news sources, like Fox and MSNBC, are really just talking to one audience. This is solid evidence that if you’re not in that audience, you’re not going to get anything out of watching them,” he said in the survey.

Read the full survey results.

Gov. Daniels Visits Jon Stewart

I’m a big fan of "The Daily Show." I watch every episode, in fact. So I was pretty enthused to see the governor of our great state on the program last night. Mitch Daniels appeared to promote his new book, "Keeping the Republic" — and was asked some pointed questions about his economic philosophies. So how do you think he did?

Interview: Part I

Extended: Part II

Extended: Part III

C-SPAN Founder Lamb Looks at Past & Future of Network at Economic Club

Presidential Medal of Freedom winner and famed journalist Brian Lamb began Wednesday’s Economic Club of Indiana presentation in Indianapolis by poking fun at the C-SPAN networks he created and runs. The audience rolled with laughter as Lamb played satirical journalist Jon Stewart’s commentary on the admittedly dry nature of C-SPAN’s 24-hour congressional coverage.

With all joking aside, Lamb, a Lafayette native and Purdue alum, used archived C-SPAN video to share a variety of Hoosier success stories. Lamb demonstrated the massive archives’ true value with his uncanny ability to connect incredible happenings with the often tiny details of their origin. Lamb recently made C-SPAN’s entire 30 years of video history free and available online in hopes that educators will start making similar connections for young minds.

Going where cameras have never gone before

C-SPAN is regularly credited with gaining unprecedented government access for all media outlets – increasing the public accountability of elected officials. Not all of this access has been welcome or easily won.

“Our whole effort is public meetings and you would be surprised how hard it is to get into public meetings,” Lamb explains.

Lamb described how resistance from congressional leadership has increased over the past couple of years, but stated his belief in the need for private meetings to occur.

The times they are a changin’

Lamb, well known for avoiding even the slightest hint of his personal political views, did comment on broad changes in political media and the increasingly argumentative tone.

“I think we’re probably better off when people are at each other’s throats and challenging each other on bills,” Lamb offered, adding, “The stronger the voices are, the better…”

Lamb spoke of the three networks that dominated news when he was growing up and how much government happened behind closed doors because of the lack of available coverage. He welcomes the advent of blogging and social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.

One aspect of media evolution that Lamb views as negative is the increasing impact of money on the trade – pointing to Walter Cronkite’s hiring of a talent agent in 1952 as the first link in this chain.

The next Economic Club event is scheduled for Tuesday, May 4 and will feature Mark Miles, president of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership discussing economic development in Central Indiana. 

Learn more about the Economic Club of Indiana.