Why Is Soft News So Hard?

In a column I wrote yesterday on Terrell Owens, the Philadelphia Eagles' bad boy wide receiver, I glanced on an angle that's puzzled and perturbed me for awhile: why doesn't the conventional press cover sports and entertainment more?

I think most people would disagree with my premise and argue not only does the press cover sports and entertainment way too much, but that coverage is integral to the tabloidization of the news. Cases in point: O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, and Janet Jackson. And both morning and primetime shows are filled with celebrity interviews and profiles. The counter-argument continues that sports and entertainment have their own devoted media and press corps and the main sections of newspapers and television hard news broadcasts ought to stay away.

While all that is true, what is missing from the mix is (to use the "s" word) serious coverage of sports and entertainment. After all, the average American individual watches 4 hours, 32 minutes hours of television a day. A day! As an influence, even a basic ingredient, of American life it is unparalleled. Yet how much reporting, analysis or even opinion journalism is there about those four and a half hours a day — the economics, effects and even composition of them? Zippo.

I can't really speak with much first hand knowledge about newspapers and magazines, so let me just toss out a few ideas about why this situation exists in broadcast news.

First -- duh -- it's hard for television to report on television. Could "60 Minutes" do a report on why crime scene dramas like CBS's "C.S.I." are so wildly popular? Probably not. The entanglements, potential conflicts of interest and vulnerability to criticism are too vast. But I would argue television news ought to do such stories regularly and systematically.

Money is another reason, in a very straightforward way. It is very expensive to use pictures of sports and entertainment. The rights issues are huge and these people have lawyers. If a TV producer uses a single curveball on the air, they're going to hear form an attorney for Major League Baseball. Producers are expected to make television stories where the pictures are relevant to the words; it's hard with sports and entertainment.

Another problem with sports is that many people who make editorial decisions think sports stories are immediate turn-offs for half the audience — women.

Another problem with entertainment is that journalists are very sensitive (believe it or not) to criticisms that they are pandering or are going too light.

So I'm just tossing these notions out hoping it might start an argument that I will find useful. What do you think? Does the establishment press do too little or too much on sports and entertainment? Is there a kind of reporting that would be more illuminating? Are whole sections of American culture essentially exempt from the kind of scrutiny that government and commerce are at least supposed to get?