The glacial change in the tone and language of news radio is nearly complete. Radio is finally slipping farther away from the old days of reading “the news” with feigned authority and implied dignity, void of emotion. That was the allegedly unbiased approach some purists still long for. But then, a lot of us Boomers still think of “the good old days” with rose-colored memories.
Things weren’t really that much better then, they were just different.
The problem is people today don’t relate to the old traditional style of radio news. Real people don’t talk in pretentious phrases, cop talk, and legalese to imply a level of expertise radio newsies often don’t have. Real people tend to distrust those who do talk that way.
In a Medium post, Canadian business consultant Aziz Mone published a pretty fair list of reasons for the decline of “old media”. A self-described Serial Entrepreneur and self-published author, it’s helpful to remember that Mr. Mone has his personal business interest at heart but hell, we all do. As I said, it’s a fair list including such obvious points as the rise in social and digital media, so-called citizen journalists, and a desire for personalized, on-demand information.
Sure, modern radio has challenges with all of these issues but the one item on Mone’s list that jumped out at me was, “Erosion of Trust: Incidents of misconduct, misinformation, and biased reporting have shaken the public’s trust in traditional media. As a result, alternative news sources and citizen journalism have gained momentum.”
We’re not just talking about mistrust of radio, of course. I think it’s safe to assume that radio news is far more trustworthy than TV and giant news publications if only because radio has fewer resources and less time to get it all together. In every radio newsroom I’ve ever worked staffing was between six and 20 full-time writers, reporters, editors, and talkers. (Go ahead, call yourself an anchor if you prefer. I don’t care. It just always sounded silly to me.)
If Edward R. Murrow was a radio news broadcaster today, would he have the near-unanimous belief and trust that he enjoyed while covering the German attacks on France and England? Would Paul Harvey’s warmth, charm, and eloquence have today’s youth enraptured by his radio reports? He had me when I was 17. I now have a 21-year-old grandson in the Navy who would never listen past Paul’s famous signature, “Stand by for news!”
Yep, the times change with technology. More sources make for more questions and assumptions. Murrow had no competition in his war correspondence. Harvey’s personality lit every room he ever entered. (I met him 35 years ago and it still thrills me.)
So, sure, styles change but it has been stunning to me how slow the change has been coming in radio. I’m finally starting to hear a bit of emotion, a smile or two, and even an occasional laugh on Big All-News Radio. None of those things imply bias. They imply humanity and by the way, being human allows us to make the occasional mistake. If you screw up own it. Even in these days of Cancel Culture people will forgive and forget. It’s a pity politicians still don’t seem to get that.
It’s nice to finally hear people on the air telling me what’s going on in the world without trying to pretend that the tragedies and triumphs all mean the same to them. But hey, here’s an idea. If you have a Joe Friday “Just-the-facts, ma’am” attitude plug in Alexa or
Siri and prompt them to do your newscasts. They’ll do it and sound like we did in the mid-70s.
In my humble old fart opinion, news stations still have another big hurdle to clear in the radio news race for relevance. Now that you’re allowing your people to sound like what they are, the man and woman down the street, for pity’s sake freshen your overall image. I beg of you, drop the big-time radio news-of-the-world sounders, the sung call letters, the excellent in their time stingers, bumpers, and rejoins produced by PAMS 40 years ago, and as much as it kills me to say it, it’s time to retire the magnificent recorded voice that introduces your morning team as if they were Ryan Seacrest and Vanna White.
The big-time posturing needs to end, thirty years ago.
I’m going to stop for now. You’re welcome. But I will suggest one more tweak that will improve your news radio listenability and very possibly your ratings tenfold:
Stop reading the news. Just talk about it.
More on that next time
