New Media v. Old Media

It's time for Don Hewitt to retire, completely.

In his op-ed piece for the New York Times yesterday, Hewitt lamented the sorry state of the broadcast network evening newscasts.

He suggests that what's lacking is "opinion - the kind of personalized, highly subjective material that people turn to the commentary page of their newspaper for after they've finished with the front page."

Hewitt goes on:

Why couldn't a newscast follow a newspaper's example and include commentary by bright, attractive articulate men and women of various political and ideological persuasions, with whom viewers - like newspaper readers - can agree, disagree, laugh at, sneer at or argue about when the newscast is over? Jim Lehrer regularly includes a diversity of opinion in his "NewsHour" on PBS; CBS, NBC and ABC aren't reluctant to offer opinion in their Sunday talk shows, though they shy away from it on their newscasts.

Sure, traditions like the one CBS's Walter Cronkite and NBC's Chet Huntley and David Brinkley pioneered more than 40 years ago die hard but they do sometimes die. To keep them going, the broadcasts need something new. We were lucky enough to hit on something fresh at CBS in 1968 with "60 Minutes," which included a great attention-getter called "Point Counterpoint" that was later supplanted by an equally popular closing feature called "A Few Minutes With Andy Rooney."

Now, if the networks are looking for ways to re-energize their news, the formula may be as simple as taking a page from the "60 Minutes" book and offering some audacious commentary.
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Again, these liberals just don't get it. They don't understand why the Old Media is fading.

Hewitt is clearly in denial.

He doesn't understand that with the rise of the New Media--talk radio, cable outlets, the Internet--the Old Media were exposed as partisan hacks and spinmeisters.

He says the networks need to inject opinion into their broadcasts. Can he really be so blind or befuddled that he doesn't realize the network news outlets are liberal mouthpieces?

In effect, the networks haven't suffered due to a lack of commentary; they've been destroyed by it.

The monopoly on the dissemination of information that the Old Media enjoyed since the birth of network news has been busted. The stranglehold they had on the minds of the people has been loosened by alternative sources.

The Old Media isn't dead. Not yet. It is mortally wounded.

It's a victory for democracy and truth.