Public Eye
March 30, 2007 4:13 PM

John Kreiser On Cancer Coverage

(CBS)
Earlier today, I posted my thoughts on the "Evening News" spending much of this week focused on cancer. I wrote that "since we can get our news in a lot of different places these days, the decision to devote so much of the show to cancer strikes me as an admirable one."

Not everyone agrees with my take on this, and CBSNews.com's John Kreiser has written a reply to my post. You can read it below.


There is a place for the kind of coverage the "CBS Evening News" provided this week on the subject of cancer. Unfortunately, the "Evening News" wasn't that place.

With 30+ years in the news business, I'm old enough to remember when the "Evening News" actually focused on the day's biggest stories. As Brian points out in his entry, with the abundance of sources these days, network news shows no longer function as the principal source of news for many people — though because network news demographics tend to skew older, a lot of the people who watch the news shows still get a great deal of their daily take on what's going on in the world from them. Also, there were indeed hard-news pegs on which the cancer coverage was hung — the recurrence of Elizabeth Edwards' and Tony Snow's cancer, the news that MRIs can be used to help diagnose breast cancer, and that a prostate cancer vaccine moved another step closer to approval.

But did CBS really need to spend part of its 22-minute news block telling you how cancer spreads within the body (a perfect thing to put on CBSNews.com, but not on some of TV's most precious real estate), or on many of the other aspects of the package that had informative value but weren't part of the day's news? It's the type of subject that screams for a one-hour special in the evening (the kind of thing CBS used to do so well, back in my day) — not a bunch of pieces centered around a common theme.

Putting a longer show on cancer (or Africa, or any topic) would also allow correspondents to do some real reporting. One problem with anything that airs on any of the evening news shows is time: Any piece that requires in-depth reporting also requires the time to give it the treatment it deserves — and that kind of time generally doesn't exist on an evening news program. One of the few pieces that I found interesting and useful was Anthony Mason's story on the costs of cancer. He got a little over two minutes. Imagine if he could have delved into the subject a little further — what are cancer's costs to business, for example? Watching correspondents do what I call "fly-by's" on a subject drives me nuts — there rarely seems to be enough time for a piece to actually tell viewers something useful.

Experimenting with the format is a good thing — there's nothing in life that can't be improved. And, as Brian points out, the evening news programs aren't as relevant as they were when I was in college watching Walter Cronkite and taking news writing classes from someone who worked at CBS. But if I were a viewer wanting to find out what was going on in the world this week, I'd probably have tuned in elsewhere.
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John Kreiser ,
cancer
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by ronmwanga March 31, 2007 2:44 AM EDT
(cont'd from below)

The older demographic of CBS Evening News, incidentally, could arguably be better served with a single in-depth story that a cluster of "fly bys." Anyway, that seems to me to be the logical trajectory of CBS News in this digital era, which was always the most serious of the big 3 newcasts.

Both of you believe in longer, more informative news pieces on CBS News; the minor discord in opinion comes from What to cover. What, indeed? This is what the experimntation is for and why the Agreement and Disagreement and this very debate which we are having provides much-needed input.

Can I second the notion of Africa? There's interesting things happening in Zimbabwe.
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by ronmwanga March 31, 2007 2:15 AM EDT
Both points are well-taken; they are also not so far apart. On the Cancer reporting this week, this is obviously something relevant for both the lives of Elizabeth Edwards and Tony Snow -- two important American media-political figures -- as well as Katie Couric, who has made it one of her projects to increase health reporting on CBS News, as well as many, many American families quietly dealing with the disease.

As far as the argument that the specifics of the cancer reporting may have been excessive for a news broadcast ("But did CBS really need to spend part of its 22-minute news block telling you how cancer spreads within the body"), I'd probably agree. Mr. Kreiser comes from a long tradition of fine reporting, and I, more from the digital side of things, count the excess as more of a misdemeanor than a full-blown journalistic crime. But, of course, this is a period of experimentation at CBS News in getting Ms. Couric and Mr. Kaplan and the Content all in perfect sychronicitous rhythm witht eh heavenly Spheres.

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by drlynne March 31, 2007 1:29 AM EDT
I appreciated very much CBS's information on cancer. My applause! I understand that this time slot makes a comprehensive review impossible. Unfortunately, many of those that need to hear the messages you shared, would not tune in to an hour long documentary. Cancer is screaming for headlines, and I am said we hear so little about prevention. With one out of two men and one in three women expected to develop cancer in their lifetime, it affects all of us. We need to plan ahead after hearing there will be a shortage of oncologists in 2020 to care for the one in nineteen people suffering from cancer. Since 80 to 95 percent of cancers have an environmental component, there is alot we can do to try to sound the siren now and avoid disaster. I wish it were more "newsworthy" to talk about the simple things people can do to lower their risk. Things such as purchasing a few houseplants (indoor air ranks 4th in environmental cancer causes per the EPA and NASA has shown houseplants are excellent at absorbing the most common carcinogens). Testing for radon. In Minnesota where I live, one in three homes have abnormal radon levels translating into one in a hundred Minnesotans expected to develop lung cancer from this entirely avoidable cause.

Thanks CBS, for devoting time to this perhaps mundane, but critical topic!

Lynne Eldridge M.D.
Author, "Avoiding Cancer One Day At A Time, Practical Advice for Preventing Cancer"
http://www.avoidcancernow.com
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