PressThink on Andrew Heyward
Jay Rosen of PressThink asked six of us to comment on CBS News President Andrew Heyward's thoughts about the future of network news.
Here's the post: “Andrew Heyward: The Era of Omniscience Is Over“.
I want to expand on my remarks, which I've pasted in below. What news organizations can do for us is aggregate, judge, visualize, and order — use their expertise to make it easier for us to get reliable news. But that may involve opening up to (and, indeed, encouraging) other sources of information that haven't been generated by the news organization itself. This will take leadership (see yesterday's post).
===
The three points that Andrew Heyward made were delivered with firm emphasis and short phrases. He was hunched over the table, looking up at us as he read, and when he was done he leaned back definitively. He had been watching the proceedings with some bemusement, and he knew that he was saying something important.
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.
Heyward’s remarks came towards the end of a quite polite, almost clubby exchange of views between acceptably middle-aged and well-behaved bloggers and media executives. Most of the bloggers cared deeply about the culture of mainstream media, and were looking for ways to help out. Absent from the room were the twenty-somethings (much less teenagers) who could have brought life to the room via a few rude remarks or stories about their own relationships to “news”. In this context, Heyward’s three points sounded brave.
In the swirling world of bits and constant exponential technological change that exists outside that clubby room, Heyward’s three points may end up sounding like the last deep chants of a vanishing priesthood.
Leadership
Someone told me today about a corporate leader who would, after making official remarks to the employees, throw his arms wide and say loudly, “The bar is open!” This signaled that the formal part of the program was over and the chatting was about to begin. The people working for this guy would have walked over hot coals for him. He would spot people across the room and shout their names. He was a convincing manager.
It's not the shouting that makes a leader. A conductor can be a great and inspirational leader without ever raising her voice. It's something else — some ineffable combination of strength and garrulousness and conviction.
The current astonishing Times crisis seems to have thematic links to the stories of cronyism [link will expire soon] in the Bush administration. We know leadership when we see it, and we're not seeing it at the moment. Leadership doesn't have to involve saying “the bar is open,” but it does have to include making good management decisions, drawing lines, being willing to be questioned, and facing controversy.