Thom Hartmann Here with an excerpt from my book “Rebooting the American Dream: 11 ways to rebuild our country.”
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"So that's the story they have to run with on the news," the intern said, relating the substance of the network correspondent's thoughts, "because that's what the American people want to see. If the network doesn't give people what they want to see, viewers will tune away and the network won't have any viewers, ratings, or revenues."
The two other interns commiserated with the first about what a shame it was that Americans wanted the titillating stories instead of the substantive ones, but they accepted without question that the network was therefore obliged to "give people what they want."
When they finished their panel discussion, I asked these college students if they knew that there was a time in America when radio and TV stations and networks broadcast the actual news— instead of infotainment—because the law required them to do so. None of them had any idea what I was talking about. They were mystified: why would a station or network broadcast programs that were not popular or not what people wanted?
But the reality is that from the 1920s, when radio really started to go big in the United States, until Reagan rolled it back in 1987, federal communications law required a certain amount of "public service" programming from radio and television stations as a condition of retaining their broadcast licenses.
The agreement was basic and simple: in exchange for the media owners' being granted a license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to use the airwaves—owned by the public—they had to serve the public interest first, and only then could they go about the business of making money. If they didn't do so, when it came time to renew their license, public groups and individuals could show up at public hearings on the license renewal and argue for the license's being denied.
One small way that stations lived up to their public-service mandate was by airing public-service announcements (PSAs) for local nonprofit groups, community calendars, and other charitable causes. They also had to abide by something called the Fairness Doctrine, which required them to air diverse viewpoints on controversial issues. Separately, during election campaigns, broadcasters had to abide by the Equal Time Rule, which required them to provide equal airtime to rival candidates in an election.
But the biggest way they proved they were providing a public service and meeting the requirements of the Fairness Doctrine was by broadcasting the news. Real news. Actual news. Local, national, and international news produced by professional, oldschool journalists.
Because the news didn't draw huge ratings like entertainment shows—although tens of millions of Americans did watch it every night on TV and listened to it at the top of every hour on radio from coast to coast—and because real news was expensive to produce, with bureaus and correspondents all over the world, news was a money-loser for all of the Big Three TV networks and for most local radio and TV stations.
But it was such a sacred thing—this was, aft er all, the keystone that held together the station's license to broadcast and thus to do business—it didn't matter if it lost money. It made all the other money-making things possible.
