When it comes to news, that’s the way it is

When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, weeks passed before the whole country heard the news. The major cities got word first. Those living in small towns and villages didn’t hear about it until long after the funeral was over and Abe was pushing up daisies.

To my way of thinking, that was the last time the “news cycle” matched humanity’s capacity to comfortably ingest information.

When I was a wee lad, in the long, long ago, newspapers were still the main source of accurate information for Americans. Television networks aired the “nightly news” – 30-minute overviews of the day’s top stories.

Then, like now, TV news painted only with the broadest of brushes; folks got the details the following day, when the newspapers hit the stands. Back then, both television and print media employed lots of people: reporters, photographers, editors, fact checkers galore, proofreaders, etc. They did this because they wanted to offer the public a superior product. Even more importantly, they wanted to get the facts right.

The public demanded it. Americans were discerning and even ruthless when it came to getting their facts. Any news outlet that “got it wrong” could count on in-baskets full of excoriating comments and an immediate loss of readership and/or viewers.

Hence, most news outlets had integrity. Yes, even the TV people. When America sat down to the Huntley-Brinkley Report they could darn well count on Chet and David to deliver The Facts. Over at CBS, Walter Cronkite’s stern, fatherly gaze spoke volumes about his commitment to journalistic excellence.

This was news you could trust. And when the Detroit Free Press, New York Times and the smaller town papers like the one you’re reading now came out the next day, readers could count on getting all the details the networks hadn’t had time to cover. The small town papers also included news on which city councilman had done something ridiculous, how many people had shown up for the Memorial Day Parade and a couple photos of the Lion’s Club chicken barbecue.

It was an elegant system. All the news you really needed was right there on your porch when you arrived home from work.

Then came the Internet. The Internet promised us limitless information. Virtually every fact known to humankind was suddenly available at the flick of a Google. Naturally, most folks used this miracle of modern technology to find web sites they wouldn’t want their mothers to know about.

But once they’d grown tired of that, they started looking for news. As a species, we like news. We like to know what’s going on. We’re nosy. And the news outlets – to compete in this brave new world – were forced to provide that news 24/7. So was born the 24/7 news cycle.

The problem is, news doesn’t happen 24/7. Not real news. Not news that matters.

Watch CNN sometime if you think I’m wrong here; after a few hours you’ll have seen the same four stories regurgitated endlessly, with tiny new “factoids” inserted scattershot as they become available. If no factoids surface, the anchors and reporters resort to interviewing each other, just to keep the blah blah blah rolling along, to keep viewers’ eyes glued to the screen.

Large newspapers – which are these days hurtin’ for certain when it comes to finances – try to compete by providing online versions of their publications. Problem is, they really are hanging on by a thread, so they’ve done what all big corporations do when things get tough: cut the salaries of top management and hire more and better reporters.

Nah, I’m kidding; they fire all their experienced writers, reporters and photographers and then hire stringers to do the job for half the money. The fact they’re only getting one-third the quality doesn’t seem to bother management at all. (If you live in a big city, compare your town’s paper with one from 20, or even 10 years ago; you’ll see what I mean. And yes, I’m talking to you, Grand Rapids.)

As to getting the facts straight? P’shaw! Nobody expects that any more, do they?

And it’s only getting worse.

The Associated Press – one of the most respected names in news gathering – now uses (and I’m not making this up) robots to write thousands of its stories each year. Yes. Robots. (I assume it’s actually more like some sort of computer writing program, but the robots thing sounds more ominous.)

These robots churn out copy that reads like this (actual excerpt with grammatical and spelling errors intact): “Apple claimed ‘most personal device yet’ is non other than Apple Watch. iWatch has a processor equivalent to 4S; graphic, connectivity & UI is just awesome.”

You don’t have to be an English major to know that article was written by either a machine or a roomful of chimps. But so what? The important thing is, it’s NEWS!! And if you click on it, you’ll be treated to a bunch of popup ads and the media outlet makes one-sixteenth of a penny.

Everybody’s happy. The corporate giant makes money, the advertisers get their products in front of your eyes, and you … well, you get the feeling you’re actually “catching up” on the news. Except you don’t get that feeling, do you? I know I don’t.

I get the feeling I’m being lead around by the nose, desperately trying to locate a story that really matters amongst a steaming pile of computer-generated literary refuse. It gets harder every day.

For all I know, the story on the Lincoln assassination is out there in the ether someplace. Given time, maybe I’ll be able to wade through enough click-bait and popups to locate it.

I’m dying to find out who shot Abe.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 745-9530

Did you see the Facebook post I tweeted about my blog on my website?

I do two things for a living: 1) I write, and 2) on the weekends, I play music with my band, The Guinness Brothers. That’s it.

There was a time, not long ago, when performing these two jobs consisted of 1) writing, and 2) playing music. For me — because I love doing both these things — it was a great time to be alive.

No more.

These days both these jobs entail all sorts of busy work that has nothing to do with either writing or music. There’s so much busy work, if fact, that I barely have time to perform my “real” jobs.

In the Golden Age when the band had a gig, we played the gig, we collected our fee, we left. It was a system so simple even a musician could understand it.

Then came (cue ominous music) the Internet. 

At first, this consisted of nothing more than setting up a cheesy band website featuring a few photos, a schedule of coming shows and a little contact information. Since this was still the early days of online life, I had to teach myself HTML to build the site. I wasn’t interested in learning to write code, but I couldn’t afford to have someone else do it for me.

Then I had to set up an email account to let our “regulars” know where we were playing each week. Bothersome, but still not too time-consuming. 

Then came Facebook. All of a sudden it was imperative the band have a “presence” there, a presence that was updated at least a few times a week with “behind the scenes” photos, comments from listeners, and personal information in which no rational person could possibly be interested.

And then came Reverb Nation, where I was supposed to upload recordings of our music. And YouTube, where I was supposed to upload video of the band’s recent gigs. And Twitter, where I was supposed to upload “tweets” that show how witty and fun-loving all we band “boys” are.

Meanwhile, this whole ridiculous scenario was being mirrored in my other pursuit, writing. Writing was no longer enough; I was expected to “promote” myself on — you guessed it — Facebook, Twitter, websites and YouTube.

Then I was supposed to blog about my writing and then promote the blogging on all those same social media outlets!

Why must I do this? Because everyone else is, so I have to as well, in order to stay “competitive.”

It’s reached the point I no longer have time to produce any actual music or writing; I’m too buy promoting myself. 

With these constraints on my time, it’s unlikely I’ll ever create any music or literature worth the paper it’s written on. But I will probably be famous.

Just like everyone else.

mtaylor@staffordgroup.com

(616) 548-8273