The leftovers from the midterm elections are still in the refrigerator but I’m looking forward to either finishing them or tossing them out.
I will not feed them to the dog, I love dogs too much.
Among the predictable messages that come after election results, no matter how long they take is “we need to do better”. That’s generally a given after looking at either side of a political scorecard but in this particular case, I think it resonates a bit more, for us.
We, the news people, need to do better. Actually, we need to be better.
And, of course, we can be.
Once again, this is not an attempt at cheerleading nor is it a shot in the arm.
I am no more a clean thinker than anyone else on the planet but I believe I share a common vulnerability; fatigue.
The hamster wheel that is a job like ours perpetuates a buildup, a film of apathy and when it comes to covering politics, or more accurately the antics of politicians and candidates, it’s a difficult ride to dismount.
But once again, we have that regular opportunity to alter the game plan again.
The faces are now changing in leadership (a little) and prominence (somewhat) but of course, some things will remain familiar.
The House is flipping, 45 wants to be 47 and the old arguments will now feature a few new, differing voices.
It is these potential differences, I believe now as much as ever, our audiences want us to steer towards. If you ask yourself, “how weary am I” from the last two years of diatribe, in-fighting, out-fighting and people in power being just plain mean, ask yourself, “how weary are they?” … our audience?
I could name names, point fingers and cite examples but the joy of this business is the fact that anyone reading this (thanks, by the way) can think of countless citations all on their own.
So, what is happening right now?”
Will another run at The White House come with a different approach by the now again candidate?
Congress has yet another opportunity to be something other than what they have been.
What will we do?
Will we be different?
I would ask, should we be different but I already think we should, so ask yourselves.
Legislating, campaigning, and communicating… are all becoming more and more feral.
And we, in this business, wait for it, we pursue and we cannot wait to cover it.
Our broadcast sense of neutrality and non-partisanship deteriorates by the minute.
Hell, we even add to it all.
We are on the hook for some of this, make no mistake.
I’ve asked this before, but what’s more disheartening than hearing or seeing a veteran, tenured and respected anchor/reporter wearing their political and personal leanings in their coverage. Former Presidents are Former Presidents, yet suddenly Donald Trump is Ex-President Trump. I never heard, of Ex-President Obama or Bush or Clinton or Hoover.
False Claims have now become Lies.
We lash out in the only way most of us know how, in our writing. Are we being clever or clandestine or just unscrupulous? At a minimum, it’s immature.
If you really need that badly to step into your own stories using addition or omission, go get a talk show.
(This is not a positional complaint by the author here, it’s about how we report the news. Anyone wishing to know where this former cop-current newsperson stands on issues social and political, feel free to send a detailed list of questions. You’ll either be fascinated or incredibly bored.)
We are supposed to know what’s important and relevant and what is not.
When we ignore that ability, we become exactly what we at least once didn’t wish to be.
What actually is happening in the story constantly takes a back seat to the language, the insults, and the juvenile name-calling that we’ve become so accustomed to. So much that it falls into our coverage without us even thinking about the issues that are actually being batted about, they are lost or diluted.
And that’s not what we are supposed to be doing.
It’s a lot easier to republish somebody’s rehearsed soundbite or republish a tweet than actually tell the story with detail and non-partisanship.
There is no wrong in reporting incendiary remarks or behavior when it is actually news but we are regularly caught in somebody else’s trap, an individual looking for coverage, for attention. They need facetime or namespace and they use us to do it.
We did a weak job because the same people will do it again tomorrow. We put them in control of our jobs.
Afterward, we look at the work we just produced and realize we just got hosed.
But, I say with a distinct level of insufferable naiveté, our job is our job, our work is our work.
We shouldn’t let somebody else take the wheel.
The truth is still out there and we don’t run from it, we pursue it. At least we are supposed to go after it.
The job is to clear away the brush, the camouflage. Real journalists (I will never call myself one, I simply stand in awe of them) will sidestep the rhetoric, all veil and the deception. They can do that and still be creative, engaging and accurate.
The lawmaker, the politician, the candidate all hold dominance over the news media when their soundbites and exclamations drive the story.
We can only control what we do.
I would much rather it be we to effect change as opposed to someone like Kari Lake or another politician or wannabe thinking it will be up to people like her to “reform” the media.
So, what are we going to do differently this time around?
And before we arrogantly start thinking that it’s not we, who need to change, think again.
Bill Zito has devoted most of his work efforts to broadcast news since 1999. He made the career switch after serving a dozen years as a police officer on both coasts. Splitting the time between Radio and TV, he’s worked for ABC News and Fox News, News 12 New York , The Weather Channel and KIRO and KOMO in Seattle. He writes, edits and anchors for Audacy’s WTIC-AM in Hartford and lives in New England. You can find him on Twitter @BillZitoNEWS.
