Entertainment tomorrow

Recent quarrels between the White House and Fox News have fueled a fierce debate about what news in America is and should be. 

While I liken this squabble to a childish game of King of the Hill, where the proverbial hill is the ability to claim the moral and political superiority, I do think it reveals an alarming issue in American journalism – the rise of entertainment news against traditional reporting.

News, like any other American business, has always been modeled for profit.
Even the institution of objective reporting began as a means to secure the broadest possible audience and compete with the non-factual, gossip-intensive “penny papers” of the time – equivalent to today’s National Enquirer.

But the rise in technology in the past two decades has led to sweeping changes in the media world.

Now, the reign of broad, objective reporting seems to be on its way out. The lucrative business model that put papers like the New York Times and the Washington Post atop the communications industry is steadily dropping because of competition from the Internet and niche entertainment news broadcasts. 

New business models, like Fox News’ 24/7 reporting, are blending entertainment with political and current events and banking big. Long gone are the days where Americans sat down to watch a nightly news program or woke up in the morning to read the local paper.

Instead, families with five TVs are splitting their news between Stephen Colbert and the increasingly evil Glenn Beck. And for instant updates, traditional news sources are left behind by Twitter and Facebook statuses.

However, it’s not the lack of credibility or accountability that bothers me most about these sources. Rather, it’s the extent to which individuals are using them as their only source of news.

Not only does this lead to the dissemination of misinformation, but it also tips the market away from more trusted outlets.  

While my capitalist spirit wants me to believe that this is healthy competition for traditional news outlets and that a better product will inevitably emerge, I am fearful that it will not.

If trends continue to push for the Limbaughs and Olbermanns of the world and other extreme television or Internet pundits, we may begin to see an even larger shift toward party programming.

And if you don’t believe that news is on a slippery slope, look out for the next installation of “Picking a Fight: White House vs. Fox News” in the Associated Press.