There is a certain irony in today’s announcement that CBS News will partner with UStream to live stream the network’s evening news broadcasts. UStream’s calling it an experiment in “viral news.”
I’d call it a nifty bit of free press, and nothing more.
The evening news hasn’t been relevant since the 80s, and we have Ted Turner to thank for that. His network changed the nature of news from something that happened yesterday to something that’s happening right now on a screen in your living room. There’s a reason why, in 1990, Dan Rather told The Chicago Tribune, ”I think that within five or 10 years, only one of the networks will have a news show.” 1. Even then, news was moving too fast for ABC, CBS, and NBC.
In the 90s, the Internet took what CNN had done and moved it one evolutionary step farther. News isn’t just what’s happening now. Today, news can be whatever you want it to be, delivered however you want it. And if you’re reading it in anything less than real time, you’re already out of the know.
The old rules for journalism just don’t apply anymore, and that’s not easy to accept. A show like the CBS Evening News used to be a trusted source of news. But turn on Katie Couric tonight, and you’ll find yourself watching a program that’s all about things you’ve already read or seen today. There’s no new information, and few stories worth noting.
So why, exactly, would anyone at CBS believe that by switching the box with which you watch the news — while keeping the same basic platform for the program — a new demographic will suddenly tune in?
Repackaging content for a new medium is one thing. But this is an attempt to rebrand a fading show as tech savvy, and it’s a feeble attempt at that. Today’s announcement is further proof that network news is struggling to even remain relevant in today’s media environment.
We’re going through a major change in journalism, and it’s impossible to know what it’ll look like when everything’s been shifted. But I know that we need more reporters, more news, and more ideas. We need evolution in journalism to move as fast as the revolution we’re seeing with technology.
And we need to know that sometimes — and this is one of those times — an old model just isn’t worth reviving.
H/T to Image Editor and juhansonin for the images, which I’ve pieced together in Photoshop.
1. Neuharth, Al. “CNN: Noodle Soup Glues Globe Together.” USA Today 1 June 1990. Lexis-Nexis.