I want to Bomb the whole building," CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves reportedly told his colleagues, as if his network's once legendary news-gathering operation had become an enemy outpost within the larger Viacom conglomerate.
According to a profile in the New York Times Magazine, Moonves believes it's time to "break the mold in news" and reinvent the network.
"We don't have a choice," he said. Why is change so essential? It seems that "American audiences don't like dark," Moonves said. "They like strength, not weakness, a chance to work out any dilemma. This country is built on optimism."
His solution, according to the Times profile, is to make his news programs more like his entertainment shows, with "better stories told by attractive personalities in exciting ways."
Moonves only half-facetiously declares that he is looking for something between "The Naked News," a British show ("It's a woman giving the news," he said, "as she's getting undressed"), and "two boring people behind a desk."
When this nation's founding fathers set out on their experiment in democratic governance, one of their most revolutionary ideas was that political power would be moderated not only by checks and balances built into the government, but by a free and independent press that would provide knowledge to the public and warn of pending dangers.
As James Madison bluntly observed, "A popular government without popular information, or the means of securing it, is but a prelude to a farce or tragedy, perhaps both."
It is increasingly difficult to discern the vision of Madison in broadcast news today, even though most of it comes over airwaves owned by the public and licensed to commercial outlets for a few hundred dollars a year.
And now, Moonves, one of the most powerful figures in American media, says that, because of poor ratings (7 million daily viewers) and aging demographics, his network needs to go even further and "break the mold in news."
But if avoiding "dark" becomes the criterion for broadcast, how will Americans learn about such stories as New Orleans and Iraq, never mind Sierra Leone, Kosovo, the melting polar ice cap or the dying oceans? If only perky, upbeat stories and shows make it onto the air, who will inform the public and play the watchdog role?
