What does one think about as we enter a new year? I’d like to pay a visit to the subject of truth-telling. This is going to be a packed 365 days and as always there is a great weight and a great deal of responsibility cast upon journalism and the news media. I use both descriptors here because I don’t want to confuse anyone who might be thinking that I am in any way, shape or form including the television and radio talk shows or print/digital opinion columns in my thoughts here.
I am not, for they, as I might have mentioned a time or two before, are not journalism, they are not news. And they’re going to keep doing what they do no matter what anyone says or does.
By the way, this is an opinion column.
I write things about news coverage, journalism, the business, and its people. I’ll keep doing that, until they tell me to either stop or to start covering the cat shows.
But, as I see it, this year is going to be a bear for the real people of news.
Already, military and government officials believe the war between Israel and Hamas will last all of 2024. Where our troops may or may not be by year’s end could be anyone’s guess.
We also face an election year dissimilar in many ways from previous campaigns, with the likely party candidates each more than then three quarters of a century old and both under massive attack by detractors and the legal system to varying degrees.
All this, while the nation faces a migrant crisis most have never seen before.
Toss in Taylor Swift, more rule changes in the MLB, and whether any of it is real or AI, and I’d say legitimacy is going to be rather meaningful this year.
Those major stories and dozens of smaller occurrences will be put in front of our journalists and the truth will take on an almost new level of critical importance. Getting the issues right and doing it the first time will continue to become paramount because once it’s said, shown or printed there are no takebacks.
The information, right or wrong is out there like it is now but the emotions about everything are rising high again, and the criticism and outrage are at peak levels.
The simple words of truth are often the barrier between outrage and violence, it’s often that simple so priorities need to shift a bit in the news game.
Breaking news is going to have to take a back seat for the truth to sit up front. In fact, authenticity is going to have to drive the car. Forget about getting it first, news has to get it right with no exceptions. Newsrooms have to be better. Editors, Producers and Managers, those very same people I said last week need to be acknowledged, must also be better supported so only the truth gets out there.
I worked in too many newsrooms over the last ten years where a second pair of eyes on content was often a luxury and not half as common as it was in the previous decade. Fact checking is all but gone in too many platforms. If copy is checked at all, it’s more for spelling, phrasing and flow than it is for accuracy or prevalence.
Why?
Because most of the time there is nobody there to do it and if there is, how do they know if it’s correct? How many well-versed executive producers or managing editors outside of the network or top-tier markets are out there?
And how many know if what they are proofing is accurate?
Is there time to fact-check?
It’s not just that the staffing isn’t there, the job duties are often misaligned and at often at the very worst times.
Too many newscasts means if you need it for 4 p.m. the chance of it all being confirmed, verified, or whatever can be iffy, at best. God forbid, we hold it until 6 p.m. so somebody can wait for a callback to be sure of what we’re saying.
Job cuts and layoffs are not going to stop and the staffing shortages are not going to suddenly disappear but neither should reliability.
The challenges caused by those facts, however, have to be addressed and overcome because whether it’s truly realized or not, this business (not the corporate kind, the vocation kind) is down on the mat.
Things are in a bad way here. There are far too many people on the streets who have no idea what is actually going on, they only know what they want to be happening and in order to survive, news outlets are catering to the appetites and not the reality.
On the business end, there will always be people out there wringing their hands, talking about what news must be doing to keep in step with society, with what humanity wants.
I say, no, it’s quite the opposite. Journalism may very well be at the mercy of the people but at this stage of the game, it’s up to the people themselves to decide if they really want to know what’s going on and what is true.
People will always trust journalists if they can be sure they are being told the truth. Audiences might be smaller at first but reliance will form and loyalty will emerge. The job and the consumer must each evolve like an old married couple who learn to put up with each other’s annoying habits.
My grandparents were married for almost sixty years and they figured it out. He would turn off his hearing aid when she was talking to him and she would reorganize the bedroom closet when he put the Yankees game on. News audiences can do the same thing, they can watch just the top stories and ignore the sports and business reports or vice versa, if they so choose.
News needs to climb the ladder to truth at a much faster pace. Those lines of demarcation between accuracy and truth and misinformation, street gossip, and the games of casual fact that talk shows and social media play are dissolving quickly.
The truth is out there they say and this coming year we need it more than ever, no skimping and no cutting corners. A great deal depends upon it.
Welcome to the new year, please make sure you’re doing the job right.
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.
