It’s Just a Flesh Wound

What’s Ailing CBS News? Let’s Make a Not-So-Little List

Van Gordon Sauter- Van Gordon Sauter was president of CBS News in the early 1980s and until recently was chairman of the California Boxing Commission.

What’s the big problem at CBS News?

Well, for one thing, it has no credibility. And no audience, no morale, no long-term emblematic anchorperson and no cohesive management structure. Outside of those annoyances, it shouldn’t be that hard to fix.

Personally, I have a great affection for CBS News, even though I was unceremoniously shown to the door there nearly 20 years ago in a tumultuous change of corporate management.

But I stopped watching it some time ago. The unremitting liberal orientation finally became too much for me. I still check in, but less and less frequently. I increasingly drift to NBC News and Fox and MSNBC.

This week, when CBS News announced that four employees would lose their jobs in connection with the George Bush National Guard story, I was struck by how the network had become representative of a far larger, far more troubling problem: A large swath of the society doesn’t trust the news media. And for many, it’s even stronger than that: They abhor the media and perceive it as an escalating threat to the society…

For CBS News, the only path back to anything near first place will require a compass setting based in objectivity and quality.

Or it can sulk and feel victimized and drift even further into a partisan milieu with an even smaller but highly dedicated audience.

I’d bet on the former. The stockholders bought into broadcasting. Not narrowcasting. The market will prevail.

Ouch. (via Ipse Dixit)