Radio & TV Talkshows

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The culture of celebrity has purportedly undermined serious journalism. Certainly serious journalism seems a distant memory in this country-of an era when Walter Cronkite was as trustworthy warmly telling the evening news as our impressions of Walt Disney or, one, wherein the courage and integrity of a Katherine Graham of The Washington Post could challenge, confront and victoriously expose the corruption of the Nixon administration. Modern authors, like James Fallows in Breaking The News, believe the culture of celebrity and the modern media have undermined democracy itself. Other writers, like Howard Kurtz in Hot Air, argue that radio and talk show content, issues, hosts and guests have become coarsened and exist only in direct proportion to their ability to generate ratings. It appears the nightmarish and unbelievable world Paddy Chayefsky painted in his Oscar winning script for Network, in which an anchorman is assassinated due to poor ratings, is as upon us as Orwell’s “big brother” in 1984. Yet, the culture of celebrity, the development of the sound-bite-oriented generation-X-ers and an insane push for ratings (i.e., return on investment) may have undermined serious journalism and threaten American democracy itself. However, there are larger underlying factors. Perhaps the chief phenomenon a

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earned not necessarily being the best talk analyst, a man like Springer, one, who by his own admission, is not good at his job, “I have no training in this. No particular talent. Someone signed me. I didn’t even try out. So I got lucky and I’m a schlub with a show. There are millions of people that can do it better…The things you get famous for in America,” (Hedegaard 43). The catering for ratings to the mass audience who is starving for information-any information it appears from the popularity of some radio and TV talk shows, not too mention the phenomenal success of the printed and televised tabloids-dilutes the content of the information, the integrity and skill of the analyst/host, and the efforts of serious journalists to promote the truth. In a way, this type of trend seems only natural in a country where it is becoming more and more impossible to act collectively. When America was a smaller country it was easier for talk and discussion in public to unite individuals and eventually evolve into a course of action. Today, the diversity of opinions, the numerous amount of radio and TV talk programming and the separatist nature of religion, politics and many other social phenomena in this country make action from
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 6864
Approximate Pages = 27 (250 words per page)