CBS News in the doghouse - but who cares? Not Viacom

In following the CBS News debacle (over the fake documentation in the President Bush National Guard service story) in the Washington Post, I'm left feeling that the saddest part of this story is not that CBS screwed up and three senior executives and Dan Rather's producer got fired. Nor is it that Rather's now quit as CBS Evening News anchor (that should have happened long ago). Nor is it that CBS news ratings have fallen even farther behind those of ABC and NBC. Nor is it even that all the mainstream news media - already all-but cowed into submisison by the current conservative ascendancy - have taken yet another body blow. That's very serious, yes. But the saddest part is all this (from a piece by Frank Ahrens) is the following:

However, the findings [of a damning CBS report] have had little financial impact on CBS's parent, entertainment giant Viacom Inc., blunted by the small part CBS News plays in the media conglomerate's disparate holdings and the popularity of the CBS Television Network, which is the highest-rated.

In other words, CBS News really just doesn't matter much anymore. I know this will sound like old-timer talk (and I'm not, really!), but ... It used to be - in the Golden Age of television news, from the early 1960s through the 1970s - that television news was a privileged loss leader for the networks. Beginning with NBC's Huntley-Brinkley Report in the 1956, news became important for networks - it became their jewel in the crown. Network owners were proud of their news divisions. This was especially true of CBS News - the CBS of Edward R. Murrow, Fred Friendly and Walter Cronkite. (For more on this see this overview by NYU media historian Mitchell Stevens). That CBS didn't let the wusses run the news all the time. Well, those days sure are gone, aren't they? Now, notes Ahrens, CBS News' ratings drop means that its "Evening News" and other CBS News programs have "to give advertisers more commercial time to make up for lost audience numbers that are guaranteed in contracts." But really, when Viacom Pres Les Moonves looks at the big picture, he's not losing too much sleep over this. Never mind about the impact on the deteriorating fabric of a vibrant public sphere in America; as long as profits are left untouched, so what?


There are dark days ahead for network news in this country. Bet you didn't know that already, right?