Rick Sanchez: “The Uninformant”

I have been inundated with questions about Rick Sanchez since he went after John Stewart and the Jews who run broadcasting and was subsequently fired last Friday. The most common question I’ve been asked is: “Would you have fired him.” I think the bigger question one should ask is whether I would have hired the man.

John Stewart easily proved that Rick Sanchez is a know nothing boob who did not have the knowledge necessary to do his job. Lisa de Moraes, in The TV Column writes: One example of Stewart’s derision came on March 2, when Stewart’s show ran clips of Sanchez anchoring CNN’s live coverage of a Chilean earthquake and the accompanying fears of a tsunami. In the clips, Sanchez is seen mistaking the Galapagos Islands for Hawaii and asking an expert to explain to him what nine meters means “in English.” Stewart called CNN “the most trusted name in overcaffeinated control freaks,” and Sanchez’s photo was shown above an identifier that read “The Uninformant!”

How does a guy who doesn’t know what a meter is or where America’s 50th state is located get an anchor job on a U.S. national network? Further, you may ask, doesn’t anyone at CNN ‘vet’ the hires? Don’t they check the background, knowledge and prejudices of the people they foist on the public and describe as journalists and news people?

The obvious answer is that they don’t do their due diligence and they don’t seem to care unless the guy or girl loses their cool and blurts out a racist remark. Sanchez was fired for his comments about Jews, not his ignorance of basic facts. I for one, find that a frightening proposition because it demeans all journalists, all journalism and certainly everyone involved with broadcast news. All we have is our authority and the trust of the audience. If we lose that we will cease to matter.

The anchor position in a newscast has undergone many changes in the past few decades. There was a time when all you had to do is read what others wrote and look good doing it. Good hair and smart suits were more important than good news judgment and smarts. Thankfully, that began to change in the era of Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. These guys were authority figures. We knew we could trust what they said because we knew we could trust them to know what they were talking about. They weren’t what we later called “meat puppets,” they were newsmen, journalists.

Eventually that rubbed off on local news. It took decades, not years, but we finally reached the point where if you want to be an anchor in Calgary, Dallas, Halifax or Minneapolis, you had better have reporting experience. Sure there are a few old time announcers hanging in, although at the national level Lloyd Robertson is likely to be the last, but they should all be gone sooner rather than later.

Authority and trust, I thought, had become the most important attributes in choosing a new news anchor. That however, is beginning to change and it’s the all-news channels in the U.S. that are leading the movement towards blow-hards and shock-jocks. Fox may be the worst offender, but as Rick Sanchez and CNN have proved, they are not the only ones. Jeffrey Dvorkin wrote a terrific analysis in his blog, Now the Details http://www.nowthedetails.blogspot.com, he said, I do blame CNN: it allowed Sanchez (and others like him) on the air and seems unable to find its role, squeezed by the bloviators on Fox and the more thoughtful journalism to be found elsewhere on TV and radio. He also points out that in the U.S. there is actually nothing new in this trend: There is also a long tradition in American broadcasting of extreme opinions going back to Father Coughlin in Detroit in the 30s and 40s. Walter Winchell became equally paranoid in his later career and was one of the more effective red-baiters in the Cold War. Sanchez, Beck, O’Reilly and Limbaugh are entirely within that tradition.

This is where you are thinking that the recent hires at the national networks in both the U.S. and Canada have been experienced news people who take their roles seriously and for the most part, that’s true. But I remember the days, and it wasn’t that long ago, where newscasts were filled with solid news content and nothing but solid news content. Paris Hilton couldn’t buy her way onto a newscast and to get the results of last night’s American Idol, if it had existed, you would have to watch American Idol. Then came shows like A Current Affair and eventually Entertainment Tonight. They blurred the boundaries. I met people who said yes, they saw the news, and it turned out they were watching A Current Affair. I have seen that style infect serious newscasts and grow to be an everyday part of what we now consider news.

Is it possible that Glenn Beck will eventually infect the role of the anchor? I hope not, but it is possible. Have you seen the ads for Dawna Friesen on Global? The marketing people at Global go out and hire a serious news woman with all the right credentials and then try to sell her to the public as a soccer mom. Where’s the authority? Where’s the journalist? Were Cronkite or Brinkley sold to the public as dads? Is it because she is a woman? It makes you wonder to what lengths Global will go to sell their news. Perhaps if Friesen doesn’t work out they will follow Fox’s lead. It seems far-fetched today, but then if I had told anyone in the news business 30 years ago that clips from Survivor would make it to a newscast they would have laughed and said it could never happen.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Chet Huntley, CNN, David Brinkley, Dawna Friesen, Entertainment Tonight, Glenn Beck, Global, John Stewart, Lloyd Robertson, Rick Sanchez, Rush Limbaugh, Walter Cronkite

Fox North

The media is buzzing. The newspapers are writing stories every day. TV commenters are filling the blogs and web sites with gloom and doom. University teachers are being called for their take on the impending story and op-ed pieces are being penned by learned experts. I’m sure the editorial writers across the land are sharpening their pencils in readiness for the big announcements. And what’s all the fuss about? It seems that Quebecor is about to attempt to launch a right-wing news and talk television service that has already been dubbed “Fox North” by the naysayers.

As far as the Canadian media are concerned, and you can count me among them, Fox News is the antichrist of TV networks. I have no problem with their conservative viewpoint. But I object strongly to their lack of honesty and their continued and unfettered spreading of false and unsubstantiated facts that are the lifeblood of the service they provide. Call me old fashioned but I still believe the number one rule of journalism is that you get the facts right. You can comment and spin all you want but you can’t publish false or unprovable information. Fox News and its band of crazies led by Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck are guilty on all these counts.

Still, is there really good reason for Canadian media to react the way it has? I guess I’m not ready to get upset just yet. First and foremost there is a huge hurdle that the new network has to climb. They are asking for “must carry” status from the CRTC. That would mean that all cable and satellite companies would have to find a prominent place for the new service on their dial and that all Canadians who subscribe to cable or satellite would have to pay a monthly fee for the channel whether we want it or not. In order to get “must carry” Quebecor would have to prove that they are a necessary and missing piece of the broadcast fabric that exists in Canada today. That’s a stretch. With three English all news networks already out there they would first have to prove that the others, CBC NN, CTV News Network and CP24 are either totally biased and blind to conservative views, or that a conservative viewpoint is missing from our TV choices and that being conservative is enough reason to make it essential. That’s a real problem even in Stephen Harper’s Ottawa. I don’t believe they will get “must carry”. Then what?

That will mean they will have to do deals with all the cable and satellite companies to find space. Then they will have to depend on Canadians’ willingness to ante up for the new channel. It will become our choice as viewers as to whether we want to buy another all-news and talk channel. That could be a tough sell with the costs of cable and satellite rising and most Canadians looking to pare down their media choices.

It is important to note that the existing news, talk and current affairs channels in Canada are not exactly catching on with the viewing public. CBC NN and CTV News Network have so few viewers that I suspect it would be cheaper to put their content on DVD and deliver it to the 25,000 or so folks who tune in. CP24 is one of a handful of stations that people watch but don’t listen to. Whenever I see the channel in offices, gyms, bars, the sound is turned off. It is a weather and time channel. CPAC, has anyone watched this channel lately, actually gets the same size audience as CBC NN for most of the day. Documentary Channel should do better but it remains an afterthought for viewers.

So why does Quebecor think another all news and talk station is a good idea? I suppose it is the fact that all the other news and talk stations are doing so poorly. They must believe that there is actually a void, as far as viewers are concerned, in the market. That void would have to be engaging television. The truth is that unless there is a big story breaking there is no reason to watch all-news TV. Worse, if a big story breaks anywhere outside Canada, the home grown networks can’t compete with CNN. So what will make us tune in to “Fox North”? The people at Quebecor think that strong right wing views and personalities will cause the kind of stir that will attract a large enough audience to make the station the kind of hit that Fox News has been in the U.S.

So far very few right wing media organizations have succeeded in Canada. The National Post can barely give their newspaper away. Alberta Report faded away. Sun Newspapers (owned by Quebecor) have been losing money and laying off staff for two years. So where is the market? It might be the talk radio crowd. They seem to gravitate to the wild right but every poll of their listeners has shown them to be older, lower income and lower educated. Not the crowd that the advertisers are looking for.

The bottom line for me is that the Canadians I know, even the very conservative ones, tend to be more moderate in their ideas and their expectations. In the land of “sorry” I am not sure that media crazies will be a welcome addition. Quebecor’s track record for picking winners in English Canada is a poor one. I expect we are getting our shorts in a knot prematurely.

In the meantime I welcome any organization that can create new jobs for journalist and TV producers and I even welcome the addition of an opposing point of view. I wish the Quebecor people good luck and hope they can deliver a strong but fair conservative view to Canadians. If the rumors are correct they have already helped the CBC by stealing perennial screw up reporter Krista Erickson. I guess she will now be free to date Tory MPs and maybe take a few free flights at the taxpayers’ expense.

Filed under: Media Commentary, Political Commentary, Alberta Report, Bill O'Reilly, CBC NN, CNN, CP24, CPAC, CRTC, CTV News Network, Fox News, Glenn Beck, Krista Erickson, Quebecor, Sun Newspapers, The National Post