All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week, we asked Geneva Overholser, a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism’s Washington bureau and former ombudsman at The Washington Post and a former newspaper reporter, editor, and columnist. Here, Geneva suggests that network news consider breaking even more of the barriers of tradition that currently exist in the industry. As always, the opinions expressed and factual assertions made in “Outside Voices” are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices. Here’s Geneva:

CBS News launches a new format Sept. 5, and veteran media observers are mostly urging caution. I say throw it to the winds. Not substance, not journalistic principle -- throw caution to the winds. Let me tell you why.

We speak of network news in downright reverential terms: It’s the gold standard. Iconic. The seat held by Walter Cronkite. Clearly not to be tampered with. I’m a traditional journalist with 35 years in the biz, but isn’t this a little stale? The average age of people who view broadcast news today hovers just above mine, and I’m 58. The audience is half of what it was in 1980. This is not the profile of an industry that shouldn’t be tampered with.

In the glory years of mainstream media, we journalists got very comfortable. We developed lots of traditions. We settled into some well-worn grooves. One cherished tradition was that we were the unquestioned experts. Like doctors, we knew our field and how to practice it, and it was too complex for you, the consumer, to understand. You should simply take it in and trust us.

That doesn’t fly today. People don’t trust us. They don’t want their media to be unassailable monoliths. They don’t want to be lectured to. They want to see that their voices, and voices like theirs, are heard. They want to see things explained -- and to see the media hold themselves accountable.

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