Heyward On The News Era Of Omniscience

Last month's gathering of MSM executives and bloggers at the Museum of Television and Radio continues to spur discussion about the intersection of the two. Sometime in the days after the event one participant, Press Think's Jay Rosen, was still pondering something CBS News President Andrew Heyward had said during the discussion.

Heyward forwarded the idea that big media retains an "illusion of omniscience," one that ought to be dropped. Here's how Rosen recalls the point:

"Heyward actually spoke against it, which was a first for me in listening to national news executives. He said "omniscence" was outdated; CBS would be better off without it. He talked about news that was more truthful because it was less certain, less definitive, less simple."

Heyward:

Even though my hastily scribbled notes no longer exist, I was able to track down the three points you asked about from our earlier discussion at the Museum -- ironically, they were on your blog. You grabbed a few sentences from Terry Heaton citing them. The context was a discussion of ways mainstream broadcast news has to change in response not just to bloggers but to consumers newly empowered to react, interact, and even report.

1) We have to abandon any claim to omniscience. Walter Cronkite used to end his broadcast with "That's the way it is." Dan Rather pulled that back, appropriately, to "That's part of our world tonight." The digital journalist, if he or she were being honest, would say something like "That's some of what we did our best to find out today." This means not just recognizing that on most matters there are multiple points of view out there as opposed to a single, discoverable "truth," but also -- and this is just as important -- acknowledging that the world is a complicated place, and the stories and issues we cover are not always reducible to simple, television-friendly explanations. However, that cannot be an excuse for us to shrug our shoulders and abdicate our core responsibility to strive for the highest standards of accuracy, fairness, and thoroughness. We broadcast to a large and diverse audience, much of which does see mainstream news as "definitive" whether we acknowledge its limitations or not. And we cannot shy away from following the FACTS -- and yes, there is such a thing as a fact -- where they take us.

2) We have to figure out a way to incorporate point of view, even while protecting the notion of fair-minded journalism dedicated to accurate reporting without fear or favor. Put another way, point of view and even bias have to be something we report ON even while we fight to recognize it in our own reporting and story selection. This is a really complex and nuanced area, not subject to glib solutions (like "just acknowledge your own bias and everything will be fine.").

3) We have to break down the tired formulas of television news and find a more authentic way of writing, speaking, and interacting with the people and subjects we report on. Artificial inflections and vocabulary (Pontiff instead of Pope, blaze instead of fire), predictable sound-bites, often-generic video, and stick-figure caricatures of human beings (victim, bureaucrat, cop, businessman, soccer mom) have turned the worst of television news into a kind of newzak -- in one ear and out the other. The strongest exemplars of mainstream commercial television news – "60 Minutes," "CBS News Sunday Morning," the network newscasts at their best -- stand out not just by original reporting but also by avoiding these traps. And I'm convinced a consumer-empowered marketplace will reward authenticity over artifice.

I look forward to continuing the conversation.

-- Andrew Heyward

When in 1996 Bill Clinton said "the era of big government is over," he knew that just saying it wouldn't reduce the size of any federal program. But it did affect what Democrats in the future could say: "The era of big government is back?" Not likely. I view Heyward's statement in a similar light. It doesn't change a thing about CBS News. But it makes it harder to go back.

Of course, the biggest threat to the status quo posed by Mr. Heyward's propositions is this idea of "point of view" in journalism. Of all of the frauds perpetrated on the American public in the 20th century, journalism's artificial hegemony — objectivity — is at the top of the list. I believe, as Chris Lasch so eloquently wrote in 1990, that the decline in participation in the political process in the U.S. is directly linked to the rise in the professionalization of the news business. Lasch wrote that argument, not point of view, was what was missing in contemporary professional journalism, and it's this that Heyward is actually suggesting.

On the one hand, Heyward's invective against "tired formulas" is stating the obvious: namely that authentic reporting is superior to cliches. On the other, he provides a hint about how CBS News can continue to fulfill its legacy mission, to provide definitive commodity journalism, in a fragmented digital world—how to continue to produce news for a mainstream audience when mainstream media no longer exist.

"I'm convinced a consumer-empowered marketplace will reward authenticity over Artifice," he says. It is an aspiration to be proud of.

While I applaud the fact that mainstream media are experimenting with blogging, very few of the MSM blogs take advantage of the potential for immediacy and interactivity. (I also would argue that a certain "point of view" already exists. For example, American media coverage of international news is U.S.-centric to an amazing degree.)

As Heyward suggests, technology finally has enabled a consumer empowered marketplace to begin developing. For decades, the mainstream media virtually ignored the fact that the flood of information had outpaced meaning. People need aggregation, explanation, analysis to have a clear understanding of complex issues. Our daily news reports rarely provide this context, instead focusing on the latest developments of that particular day, or yesterday, in the case of newspapers.

Bloggers, driven perhaps by the same sort of ego that motivates journalists, have graciously volunteered to fill the void. There still is a vital role for journalists who embrace change, who view evolving media as a thrilling opportunity rather than solely a threat to core journalistic values.

Heyward understands that framing the discussion as one about how "bloggers" and "journalists" interact is hopelessly shortsighted. The role of media news is under assault from many directions – people don't trust newspapers or even the evening news the way they used to. He understands that we now live in an age of networks that don't belong to CBS. And so he is willing to suggest that we are far from the time of a trusted, omniscient Walter Cronkite, and he accepts that an authoritative, smooth-faced news voice no longer resonates with the American public. So he calls for authenticity, acceptance of complexity, and multifaceted coverage.

But he is not willing to acknowledge real changes. Heyward is a very smart man, but he's being dragged into this new world and his strong beliefs were fixed some time ago. Notice that his three points shore up the role of "real" journalists ("accuracy, fairness, and thoroughness," "reporting without fear or favor," "strongest exemplars of mainstream commercial television news"). He believes that journalists will continue to do the job of news reporting, with some tweaking to ensure they're using colloquialisms and having a point of view. He is willing to take one step down from the pedestal, but he still believes that the pedestal exists and is important. He does not understand that the "people formerly known as the audience" (in Jay's lovely turn of phrase) now have the upper hand.

When people like Andrew Heyward begin playing taps for journalistic omniscience and sounding reveille for incorporating point of view in the news, change is definitely in the wind – but how strong that wind is blowing and in which direction I can't yet say.

Heyward's comments represent a growing recognition at the highest levels of the traditional news business that reinvention—from the newsroom to the boardroom—is no longer just a panel topic for the annual conventions. It is mandatory for survival.

Let's pat Mr. Heyward on the back for his openness and good sense: It is not easy, while steering such a large organization, to be present-looking, let alone forward-looking. Let's give some credit to all of those — from bloggers, to Jon Stewart, to a few generations of press critics — who helped demonstrate that the facade erected by our Cronkites and Rathers, our Salants and Heywards – though it was very often compelling and politically valuable — was always too thin and flat and narrow to bear much resemblance to "the way it is."

Let's consider what a postmodern journalism might be. … By all means let's try a new Evening News that is not so easy to confuse with the Nightly News or the World News Tonight. Let's hope Heyward will do more than sit a Republican next to a Democrat on the set, call a pope a pope and put more money into the Website; let's hope that some of this edge and potentially offensive "point of view" will be allowed into the video reports that form the heart of TV news.

But let's not pretend that this business of eradicating omniscience will be easy. If it ain't the voice of an omniscient God (omnipresence and omnipotence were lost a while ago to budget cutbacks and the rise of cable) booming out from 57th Street at 6:30, then whose voice or voices is it to be?