News

Over my life I have seen many changes in the news business. Starting with the days before TV our main source of info was the local newspaper. In most towns like mine there was usually only one paper and often times they had a morning and afternoon addition. They were profitable because they had a monopoly and were either slightly left or right in their political coverage. Since I grew up in Central Illinois the extremes were the Chicago Tribune and the St Louis Post Dispatch. In the 50's TV news came along with a 15 minute evening report of the days activities. They mostly got their stories from the NY Times which became known as the paper of record. In the early 1960's the TV news expanded from 15 minute to 30 minutes and we all wonder what are they going to talk about for a half hour. Later a late night segment was added which just repeated what was said during the early evening broadcast. The next big change happened in 1980 when CNN opened a 24 hour news station. The plan was to just repeat the evening news over and over all day but it soon weaned its way from the NY Time stories and started its own news. Since it was visual they just videoed some odd thing and had people talk over it. This then led to programs where people would take sides of an issue and argue and this of course opened the door to political differences. Then in 1988 a new kid appeared on the block when Rush Limbaugh started his AM radio show. Up to that point AM radio was mostly music and other shows with people preaching the word of God. Limbaugh quickly gathered a large audience with his conservative views and many others soon joined the AM parade. Then in 1996 Fox News joined in the foray and presented a more conservative view than was was portrayed in the rest of the TV news. The FCC limited the number of stations so they were profitable businesses because of the lack of competition. This cozy little news business was suddenly challenged, almost overnight, when in the late 80's and early 90's the Internet arrived on the scene. The competition of millions of individuals having their own news shows soon took its toll on the local TV and newspapers and profits began to fall. This resulted in the closing of many news outlets. Prior to 1980 there was something called the fairness doctrine which stated that news must show both sides of an issue. That was abandoned in 1987 and opened the door for Limbaugh. He was on afternoon radio which was called drive time when mostly working class men were coming home so he pushed views that appealed to that group. Fox News seeing the success of Limbaugh put on a TV station that appealed to the same group. Today news outlets seek out specific audiences and feed the beast and thus it is necessary to visit various news sites to get a balanced understanding of what is happening.