An open letter to telvision journalists

The media has an increasingly important role in our democracy; and it's falling down on the job.

For whatever the reason, and there are many, politicians, the people from whom we choose those will represent us in government, have learned that they will almost never be held to account for what they say and do. This is where the our media has failed us, having been hijacked by a quest ratings and a fascination with political celebrity.

Here are some symptoms: not determinedly and relentlessly confronting politicians to explain changes in their position for fear that these often mendacious, self serving individuals won't grace that anchor with their vaulted company in the future; using politicians as if they were experts to comment on other politician's statements and positions - they are seldom expert and never unbiased; filling the time with often irrelevant or unsubstantiated drivel, such as in-depth analysis of body language and 'default expressions'.

One reason for the decline in journalistic standards is the rise in power of the anchor - who need not be a good journalist, a function of the increasing shift from the written to the visual transmission of news and analysis. Another is structural; particularly influential politicians know they have considerable bargaining power, they are few (or one) while news outlets wanting to be first with a story, are many. That means politicians can set the terms of the engagement. 

Why would any serious-minded network entertain for a second the notion of devoting any air time to cover Donald Trump, an unprincipled, self-serving, self-promoting individual who in most countries would be ignored as a rather shameful carnival sideshow? Margret Thatcher knew that it wasn't necessary to give air time, 'the oxygen of publicity' to anyone with an axe to grind; and she not so quietly suggested so to the media. But our media shouldn't need any prompting. Covering the IRA is journalistically defensible; covering Mr. Trump and other relentless 'birthers' and nonsense peddlers is not.   

Time to market matters; too quick and quality suffers. That's why Jon Stewart does a better job as a journalist, albeit one with a comic take, than CNN. He and his team don't react in the moment with vacuous and generally fact free commentary; he takes a day to do his research.  And the results is a much more informed and insightful assessment of current affairs.