Back when computers came equipped with vacuum tubes and reels and took up an entire room, a comic quipped that it would take 100 men working day and night for 50 years to make the same error a computer could in a fraction of a second.
Accordingly, in today’s high-tech world, a momentary image broadcast on a live television news report can make an impression 100 print journalists could never hope to achieve.
The 24-hour news cycle pioneered by CNN in the past 25 years has produced strikingly mixed results. On the one hand, it has brought “You Are There” journalism to a new frontier; never before has a viewer been able to witness a tsunami or aerial bombardment live and uninterrupted while it happens.
On the other hand, viewers have become accustomed to 24-hour breaking news and to seeing political developments from around the globe as entertainment, a vast reality show if you will.
And nowhere has there been more of a reality show than Israel itself, in large part because CNN and its competitors have so many cameras there.
None of the media critics contacted by j. or the Jerusalem Post would accuse CNN of deliberately distorting the news (at least in the last decade), but all of them point out the disproportionately large foreign media presence in Israel.
The massive coverage of Israeli issues, at the expense of other issues often taking place in countries less accommodating to journalists, is in itself a de facto distortion.
Violence between Israel and the Palestinians is on live television — while lethal Hindu-Muslim riots in Kashmir or genocide in Sudan are relegated to a blip after the traffic and weather.
When images of Palestinian suffering are presented without context or analysis, Israelis invariably come off as a nation of bullies and villains. That kind of oversimplification goes right to the heart of what’s wrong with TV journalism.
Supporters of Israel have every right to complain about coverage they perceive as biased against the Jewish state. But, more than that, they should apply pressure to change the entire modus operandi of televised journalism. Rather than aiming to overwhelm the viewer with images that appeal at an emotional level, the CNNs of the world should present nuanced, in-depth and, yes, balanced reporting that appeals at an intellectual level.
With luck — and advocacy — the future of TV journalism could resemble the thoughtful analysis of, say, “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” That would be a vast improvement.
And we hope your voices will pressure TV news providers into making it happen.