commentary

J. Michael Luttig: “Federal appeals court judge Laurence H. Silberman’s dangerous dissenting opinion in Tah v. Global Witness Publishing last week has already caused a firestorm — not because he urged the Supreme Court to overrule New York Times v. Sullivan and its “actual malice” defamation standard, but because of the astonishing and disturbing reasons that he proposed for dispensing with that landmark decision.”

James Hohmann: “A bipartisan coalition of lawmakers — led by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) and ranking Republican member Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) — introduced legislation last week that would require the Supreme Court to start televising its proceedings. As they filed their bill, freshman Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) read aloud to reporters from a Dr. Seuss book — a publicity stunt that also felt like a foreboding omen. It’s not that justices and attorneys would be reduced to antics like Marshall’s if cameras arrived. But they would inevitably act differently, in ways that could prove detrimental to the pursuit of justice.”

Streaming TV promised to free us from schedules, but series like WandaVision show that weekly rituals still have power.

Shelly Palmer: “Whenever I’m asked about the fate of the television business, I always answer, ‘As goes the next NFL deal, so goes TV.’ Well, as everyone with even the slightest interest in the subject already knows, the NFL/TV deal is done—but times have changed. The NFL deal makes it very clear that it is time for the FCC to think seriously about reclaiming the spectrum gifted to the local broadcast industry. It is also time for Congress to craft policies that not only respect the state of today’s technology but aspire to leverage the technology of tomorrow.”

COVID-19 knocked nearly the entire media industry for a loop. How do credit and collection teams cut clients a break, but still collect what’s due their companies?

Margaret Sullivan: Misogyny, often racist misogyny, is at the heart of recent attacks on female journalists. And it’s happening all over the world. Sadly, there is a chilling effect on journalism itself. Reporters may decide to pull back to protect themselves, asking whether a particular article is really worth the abuse it will bring. They may decide to leave the profession altogether.

Nexstar’s nascent NewsNation cable network has been roiled with high-level departures and “plummeting morale amid dismal ratings,” as summarized by one media writer. It is certainly at a pivotal juncture, and whether it can deliver on the unique, apolitical content it promised will be key to its survival.

Collectively, the five independent publicly traded TV station groups paid out more than $250 million in dividends last year. Those dollars and another $700 million in stock buybacks make investors happy, but they signal that the groups are more concerned with their short-term stock prices than in innnovation (ATSC 3.0) and the future viability of their principal offering (local news). Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Margaret Sullivan: “With her relentless follow-up questions, compassionate demeanor and focused skill in eliciting bombshell after bombshell, Oprah proved herself the best celebrity interviewer ever. Oprah best displayed her interviewing chops by relentlessly circling back to emotional or news-making comments like a heat-seeking missile. Yet, unlike many an aggressive interviewer, she didn’t make the classic error of interrupting at the wrong time. She was able to let silence gather. She didn’t jump in to ruin a dramatic moment. It paid off time after time.”

As the lines continue to blur between traditional and digital media, players scramble for a piece of the new and very appetizing pie.

Margaret Sullivan: “For years, CNN had a sensible policy about whether Chris Cuomo could interview his older brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Simply put: He couldn’t. But then came the unprecedented events of last spring, as the coronavirus pandemic roiled the world and as New York City became its scary epicenter. All bets were off. These days, CNN’s ban is back and in full force. With the governor under career-threatening fire over recent sexual harassment claims and with the apparent mishandling of some parts of his administration’s covid-19 response in the news, the brother act is over.”

TV meant to be responsive to the moment seemed distant. But podcasts, with the intimate production values, felt more immediate and relevant than ever before.

Joe Ferullo: “Donald Trump is gone, but the damage done to news media lingers on. Thanks to the former president, journalism has been “Jerry Springerized” — addicted to conflict and madness in the search for audience.”

Last week’s winter storms were a reminder that audiences, enamored of streaming though they might be, still tune in to live TV coverage as essential viewing. Networks would do well to take that into account and move forward with integrated distribution strategies that include their legacy station partners.

Leaders and employees need to focus on self-care to avoid pandemic-related burnout. Staying healthy, and personally balanced is crucial as we continue to face an uncertain future. Here are some ways to work toward that goal.

Michael Cieply: Good free speech coverage would pay if you are fired, suspended, banned from professional status or otherwise deprived of income or community standing for voicing a thought that bothers someone else.

It is a welcome respite, to no longer hear terms such as “fake news” and “enemy of the people” emanating from the White House. But this is no time for complacency among journalists across the country who work hard every day to serve their communities by seeking and reporting the truth. There are still major challenges that need to be addressed.

Tara Lachapelle: Distancing from the former president may hurt ratings for a while, but it will safeguard profits over the long term.

Television stations should take a cue from the NAB, whose commitment to holding an in-person conference in October offers a light at the end of COVID’s long, dark tunnel.

Joe Ferullo: “With Donald Trump banned from Twitter and exiled to Mar-a-Lago, television news channels find themselves searching for a new tone and a fresh direction. Here’s a modest proposal: America’s overheated, hyper-dramatic cable personalities might want to take a page from Jen Psaki — because the White House press secretary is cool. And by that, I mean: “medium cool.”

As the 45th president’s second impeachment trial arrives on Tuesday, CNN viewers might want to recall how Trump’s presidency came about in the first place. It was in no small part the work of CNN chief Jeff Zucker, who announced last week that he will leave the network at the end of 2021. It started with Trump’s celebrity breakout on The Apprentice two decades ago. Zucker was the NBC executive who used Trump to boost the network’s troubled ratings. In the process, he made Trump himself a household name.

The poorly understood history of the Fairness Doctrine shows not only that reinstating it won’t fix current political media crises, but also that it won’t be the check on conservative media’s worst offenses that so many want it to be.

The media and entertainment industry has disproportionate influence over society’s attitudes, feelings and behaviors. When we take time to embrace and mentor people of color in our business, as the late Jeana Stanley of Hearst did, good things happen — we foster advancement while combatting stereotypes. Here’s to the time in our country when everyone can clearly see what they can be.

Yvonne Leow: “We’re living in a remarkable time when reporters no longer have to win an editor’s approval to publish a story, reach an audience, and get paid. In fact, anyone can technically do it, which is why the distinction between professional journalists (people employed by news organizations) and creators (individuals producing journalistic content online) no longer exists.”

A recent study published by two FCC economists shows the agency’s local ownership regulations depress the amount of local news programming that could otherwise be produced. The FCC could immediately promote more local news production just by relaxing its outmoded rules.

Chris Stirewalt: “Having worked in cable news for more than a decade after a wonderfully misspent youth in newspapers, I can tell you the result: a nation of news consumers both overfed and malnourished. Americans gorge themselves daily on empty informational calories, indulging their sugar fixes of self-affirming half-truths and even outright lies.”

Media asset management systems need to become media-centric platforms with easy-to-use integration and configurability tools, adapting and growing as needs and technologies change.

Story producers, most of whom are freelancers without union protections, are leaned on for many of the unheralded editing tasks on unscripted formats — an increasingly unsustainable setup.

In my experience, panel discussions oversimplify, provoke outrage, and allow unchecked opinion to dominate at the expense of fact-based reporting. But in reporting the issue, I found there are more nuanced and dangerous reasons that the format dominates the airwaves.

The first official words by President Biden’s spokeswoman included truth and transparency. Wednesday night’s session with reporters, the first of the Biden administration, was so normal — so weirdly normal — that you could be forgiven for thinking that you had mistakenly put on an old episode of The West Wing. This return to norms is wonderfully welcome after the horrors of the past four years. It’s also potentially dangerous.

Companies need to be aware of online compliance regulations that could trip up media businesses looking to build online revenues.

The virtual, but still vital, NATPE that took place this week occasions a look back to its origins from early days of hotel suites to a carnival-like heyday packed with stars.

Dick Lippin, a veteran communications executive, offers perspective on how the entertainment industry can help the nation rebound from the COVID-19 crisis.

It’s time to stop fueling President Trump’s lie that the election was rigged, and broadcast needs to play an important role in doing so. The NAB must cut off support to the lie’s congressional enablers, talk radio must sever ties with hosts fueling the lie and TV stations need unequivocal language to characterize it for what it is.

Oliver Darcy: “As we cover D.C. politics and the fallout from last week’s attack, we should not forget that thousands of Americans continue to lose their lives each day to this ruthless virus. And while the vaccine rollout is gradually improving, the situation right now is, frankly, very alarming and urgent.”