In the public sphere of ideas that the media is supposed to represent, there is — and has been for some time — a noticeable lack of truly innovative impulses. Nowhere is this more evident than in the medium of television. This is doubtless due in part to the large, risk-adverse corporate entities that own the big networks, but it also seems to stem from some kind of institutional inertia, which has been responsible for the ever-more-inane fare being passed off as news.
In a sense, one of the most exciting things to happen to television over the past decade or so is the emergence of Fox News, a station that proudly and unabashedly wears its conservative ideology on its sleeve, and which all but challenges you to turn it off if you don’t like what you see.
In contrast, you have CNN, where attempts to liven up cable news include making Wolf Blitzer stand in front of a bank of television screens for three hours every afternoon as he breathlessly relates the day’s events, and sitting two young women in front of big computer screens as they read sloud from blogs.
It’s a nice try, and clearly CNN head Jonathan Klein is willing to innovate, but somehow we still end up with the same old pig, different lipstick.
Back in August however, a new network hit the airwaves that offered something truly fresh — news items filmed and produced by non-journalists about stories they find important. Current TV, put together by former VP Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, received mixed reviews when it first launched, and has maintained a somewhat below-the-radar profile since. This morning, however, Current held a press conference in midtown Manhattan to help kick off a new PR campaign and talk up its participatory form of journalism.
Gore, beardless and looking a little puffier than during his 2000 presidential run, took the podium to hype Current as “the only independently-owned TV network” in the country — and one that reaches about 20 million homes nationwide, “but we want 50 million in five years’ time.”
His remarks were brief, but in a sense he reiterated what he said in a speech delivered Wednesday in Manhattan, which focused on the themes of media and democracy — a convergence we here at CJR Daily are quite fond of. “The conversation of democracy,” Gore observed, “existed before the United States of America did.” He then noted, “We’re a nation of TV watchers, but it has traditionally been a one-way medium.” In the Wednesday speech, he commented on today’s shrunken televised news divisions:
[They] have fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs.
Among the other factors damaging our public discourse in the media, the imposition by management of entertainment values on the journalism profession has resulted in scandals, fabricated sources, fictional events and the tabloidization of mainstream news. As recently stated by Dan Rather — who was, of course, forced out of his anchor job after angering the White House — television news has been “dumbed down and tarted up.”
And it really matters because the subjugation of news by entertainment seriously harms our democracy: it leads to dysfunctional journalism that fails to inform the people. And when the people are not informed, they cannot hold government accountable when it is incompetent, corrupt, or both.
Gore’s answer is Current, a network where 30 percent of the content is filmed and produced by viewers who submit stories (up from the 25 percent it ran the first few weeks of its life, and much more than 5 percent it claims to have expected when it launched). Obviously, the quality of the programming varies widely — and obviously, getting 30 percent of your content from volunteers working for piecemeal rates is a lot cheaper than hiring TV pro’s. But Gore, and others, would argue that it’s the pro’s who are the problem.
It’s a little early to say where Current will go, but we’re drawn to Gore’s equation: a healthy and vibrant media can only improve the health of our democracy. We also find it curious that of all the vocal proponents of “citizen journalism” on the Web, few have come forward to put their stamp of approval on an organization that is practicing what so many armchair pundits in the blogosphere preach.
Current is far from perfect, but it’s an interesting experiment in what the news is, and who is interested in taking part in reporting it.
–Paul McLeary
Paul McLeary is a former CJR staff writer. Since 2008, he has covered the Pentagon for Foreign Policy, Defense News, Breaking Defense, and other outlets. He is currently a defense reporter for Politico.