A sprinkling of news reports has suggested that CBS is looking for a replacement for Katie Couric. Not to do product placement here, and I have not been hired by anyone to provide PR for Keith Olbermann—who doesn’t need it anyway--but there is something to be said for sportscasters. They have to know how to count, they learn to keep their eye on the ball, and they have to be able to understand concepts like fair play. This may not sound like much of a yardstick, but it’s like knowing what beats what in poker—if you take a seat at the table, there is this irreducible minimum-type skill set you should theoretically have. As my son pointed out to me, sportscasters do not often comment too heavily on politics, but when they do, they tend to get it right. By the way, politics is not a dirty word; we are all members of the polity, and a consciousness of that fundamental is built into our system of government—but in any case, when the sports people do venture on current events, aside from weather conditions, their few, selective comments tend to be at least somewhere in the neighborhood of right, just and apt.

None of the above can be counted on in the evening news broadcasts allowed by the three television networks. Whether because of assaults from the rightwing noise machine and the consequent Fox-ification of journalism, the consolidation of outlets in the traditional news media, or an emphasis on advertising and entertainment at the expense of news, it would be very nearly providential to find out much about all five of the biggest events of any given day by turning on any of the nightly news shows. Hence the comparative strength of Countdown; you get some sense of proportion.

Perspective is essential in news gathering and should be essential in the preparation of broadcast news. Think—sad though this thought is—how different our nation and our world would be, had just one of the television networks adopted one simple practice. Back in 1999 and 2000, had just one network beefed up research, fact-checking and investigative reporting—even if it meant docking some top salaries of their best-paid news readers by, say 10 percent, or spending less on advertising sales, or cutting production costs for glitz and promos by 10 percent, etc. No George W. Bush, no Iraqi war with 4,000 Americans and hundreds of thousands of poor Iraqis killed, no draining the middle class for the few, no tacit acquiescence in social ills from tuberculosis to eroding the Fourth Amendment in favor of exploitation and bloodshed. et cetera.

We might have had it reported that George W. Bush’s credentials in ‘education reform’ actually meant a successful effort to spread honey for the Washington Post Company, which owns Kaplan (the huge testing and test-prepping conglomerate). We might have had some scrutiny at the way the Washington Post newspaper allowed GWBush a pass on every significant demerit in his life and resume—while both the governors Bush (Texas and Florida) were funneling money, at that time, to the Post Co. via ‘education reforms,’ i.e. standardized testing mandates, in their respective states.

We might have seen GWBush’s record dealt with, in the news media in the national capital, with the enlightened skepticism it needed.

I bear no brief for cable television. Just watching the interminable stacks of commercials on a channel the hapless viewer has already paid for, by ‘subscription,’ makes me yearn for what in another country might be called a Federal Communications Commission, or an Antitrust Division in what might be called a Department of Justice. Having a movie scene obscured with mini-figures promoting the next program, dancing across the bottom fourth of the screen, makes me hope Comcast goes the way of Enron. But after years of watching Dan Rather, I am one news consumer who no longer watches evening national news broadcasts, because I simply do not learn much if anything by watching them. A reasonable recommendation would be that you either put somebody on the air who can actually say something worth hearing, or go off the air.