BREAKING NEWS

Potential -- Mike Gousha, 11



Potential -- Mike Gousha, 50


Mike Gousha has been at WTMJ-TV since 1981. In August, that's going to change.

Change is good, right?

Not always.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Three days shy of his 50th birthday and more than 25 years after he started at WTMJ-TV (Channel 4), anchor Mike Gousha said Tuesday that he'll be leaving the station at the end of August "to chart a new course - one that, at this point, is still a bit undefined."

Channel 4 moved quickly Tuesday to name veteran anchor Mike Jacobs as Gousha's successor as the station's lead anchor.

...Channel 4's newscasts have gone through a number of changes in recent months, with the departures of several familiar faces, including meteorologist Jim Ott and sportscaster Kevin Hunt, and a shift toward a flashier on-air style that stresses "breaking news."

Did those changes contribute to Gousha's decision to leave the station?

"Very honestly, in a newsroom, do we always see eye to eye? No. That's a newsroom," Gousha said. "I also understand that the managers at the station try to do what they think is in the best long-term interests of the station, and that's what they do. . . . I've been in the business long enough to understand that."

The decision seems sudden, but Gousha said he's been considering it for a couple of years.

"It's not something I just woke up one day and decided to do," he said. "There's no doubt the business has changed a lot since I got into it, and people who know me well know that I've wrestled with those decisions. But I've also been here 25 years; that's a very, very long stay at a local TV station. I just feel I'm at the moment of my life where I want to tackle some new challenges, I want to do some new things, I want to explore new options."

Uncertain as to his next move, Mike Gousha is certain that he won't run for office. "I guarantee you that politics is not my future," he said.

Whatever lies ahead for Gousha, I'm sure he will apply the same high standards and integrity that characterized his years at Channel 4 to the next chapter in his life.

In this case, at least from Mike Gousha's perspective, change is good. He can pursue new ventures and personal enrichment. I wish him the best.

For Southeastern Wisconsin TV news viewers, however, this change is not good.

Within the last eighteen months, the landscape of national and local broadcast news has changed dramatically and not for the better.

It's not as if I was sorry to see delusional Dan Rather go, but the departure of the Big Three anchors did signal the end of an era.

A fair and accurate reporting of hard news has become increasingly rare.

When lib networks aren't pushing political propaganda, they're obsessing over tabloid stories. There's less substance and in-depth coverage.

For years, the trend in news has been to drift toward the sensational and the irrelevant. It's become a mix of Geraldo Rivera and Dr. Phil.

Ratings hungry networks are catering to shifts in viewing habits and viewers' interests. That makes sense in terms of raking in profits; but in terms of serving the public and the common good, it's a betrayal.

When television was in its infancy, broadcasting the news was considered to be a public service, not a money-maker.

In this era of the 24-hour news cycle and relentless promotion, it's hard to believe that it wasn't until 1963 that CBS became the first network to lengthen its nightly news from fifteen to thirty minutes.

Personally, I'd rather have fifteen minutes of solid information than hours of fluff.

I think the significance of the growing shallowness of the news cannot be underestimted. A democratic society depends on an informed populace.

In that regard, television news is failing the public.

While media outlets constantly bombard us with flashes of BREAKING NEWS, I wish they would be less driven by ratings and profits and more concerned with providing quality, substance, and depth.

BREAKING NEWS!

The news is broken.