"You Don't Understand Our Audience"

[baldguy]

What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC.

By John Hockenberry

...

At the conclusion of the screening, there were a few suggestions for tightening here and clarification there. Finally, an NBC/GE executive responsible for "standards" shook his head and wondered about the tone in the reporter's voice. "Doesn't it seem like she has a point of view here?" he asked.

There was silence in the screening room. It made me want to twitch, until I spoke up. I was on to something but uncertain I wasn't about to be handed my own head. "Point of view? What exactly do you mean by point of view?" I asked. "That war is bad? Is that the point of view that you are detecting here?"

...

Perhaps the biggest change to the practice of journalism in the time I was at NBC was the absorption of the news division into the pervasive and all-consuming corporate culture of GE. GE had acquired NBC back in 1986, when it bought RCA. By 2003, GE's managers and strategists were getting around to seeing whether the same tactics that made the production of turbine generators more efficient could improve the production of television news. This had some truly bizarre consequences. To say that this Dateline correspondent with the messy corner office greeted these internal corporate changes with self-destructive skepticism is probably an understatement.

...

While Six Sigma's goal-oriented blather and obsession with measuring everything was jarring, it was also weirdly familiar, inasmuch as it was strikingly reminiscent of my college Maoism I class. Mao seemed to be a good model for Jack Welch and his Six Sigma foot soldiers; Six Sigma's "Champions" and "Black Belts" were Mao's "Cadres" and "Squad Leaders."

more
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=19845

[1monster]

1. Kicked and recommended. How big corportations robbed us of honest

journalism.

[Forrest Greene]

2. Why Doesn't The Great John Hockenberry

...have a job on, say, Keith Olbermann's "Countdown"?

[MonteLukast]

3. What really jumps out at me...

... is how they talk about finding an "emotional center" that's virtually devoid of any actual empathy or emotional connection. No doubt they pat themselves on the back, on how sensitive and responsive they are to the needs of their audience.

Just goes to show you, that using a certain word/phrase to define something that conveys its exact opposite did not start with the Bush administration... it goes on in corporate cultures every day.

The Bushies don't do anything new. They act just like all good corporatists have always acted, have always found it perfectly normal, even admirable, to act.

Don't flatter yourselves, NBC. You're the journalistic equivalent of a Nice Guy™ whining about how women just don't understand a sensitive guy like him.

[Luminous Animal]

4. That is a great read!

Thanks.

[pamela]

5. K & R

Excellent article!

[Karenina]

6. Kick!

:kick:

[RuleOfNah]

7. Was this a scene in the movie Network?

Maybe a *deleted* scene?