When I watch or listen to the talking heads on the 24-hour news channels, I find myself longing for Douglas Edwards and the days when television news spent a lot more time telling us what is happening in the world and a lot less time telling us what to think about those events.
One just about has to be at least my age (61) to even remember Douglas Edwards. But for the record, he was the anchorman on the first national television evening news program. He first started broadcasting the news on CBS in 1948 — the year I was born — and he continued until he was replaced by Walter Cronkite in 1962.
During his tenure, Douglas eventually lost the ratings battle to first John Cameron Swayze and then later Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. But for awhile in the early 1950s, Douglas Edwards was the only game in town. You either watched the news with Edwards, or you didn’t watch the news.
To this day, I do not know the political leanings of Douglas Edwards, who died in 1990. I have no idea whether he voted for Dwight David Eisenhower or Adlai Stevenson in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections. I do not know whether he thought the sending of U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam — the first step that led us into that war — was a good idea or a terrible one.
That’s because Douglas Edwards considered it his job to report the news, not tell us what to think about it. I am certain he had his opinions about what was going on in the world, but he never shared those opinions with his viewers.
One reason is because there was not enough time. In the early years, the CBS evening news lasted for all of 15 minutes. That’s only enough time to briefly tell us the main facts about the major stories of the day. There was no time for opinions and idle chitchat. No time to tell viewers how to think.
How times have changed! While 15 minutes was not enough time to adequately cover the news of the day, 24/7 is way too much time.
I confess I do not regularly watch any of the 24-hour news channels. That’s because, except when a major breaking story like the 9/11 attacks is occurring, the 24-hour channels spend a whole lot more time telling us what to think than they do reporting the news.
Watch one of the 24-hour news channels for a couple of hours and think about how much time is spent presenting the news in a completely unbiased fashion and how much time is spent with some commentator who is an expert on just about everything telling us what to think.
Personally, when I watch the news on television, I don’t care what the commentators — none of them! — think. I just want to get enough factual information to make up my own mind.
Since my job title here at The Independent is opinion page editor, my opinion of 24-hour news channels may seem a bit strange to some. After all, the major part of my job is to produce the opinion page seven days a week. Thus, I spend a lot of time expressing my opinions and reading the opinions of others.
However, I try to limit my personal opinions to the opinion page and to this column. When I cover a news event and write a straight news story, I hope readers can read my story on that event or about that person without detecting my personal views. As an opinion writer, my job is to express the views of this newspaper on its opinion page. As a news reporter, my job is to get out of the way and let the people and events tell the story.
I think we were a lot better off as a democracy when so many people didn’t spend so much time listening to their favorite commentators and their favorite TV news channels telling them how to think. I think that is one of the reasons we have become so politically divided as a nation.
I don’t consider myself either a liberal or a conservative, although I have been accused of being both as if it were a crime. Instead, I find myself in the middle of the road politically, which some of my friends tell me means I am wishy-washy, a man lacking convictions. That’s not true, but some people you just can’t argue with.
And that’s another problem with today’s political atmosphere in this country. It used to be that those who disagreed with you were known as the “loyal opposition.” Now they are the hated enemy.
I know the 24-hour news channels and talk radio are not totally to blame for the deterioration of civil discourse in this country, but they sure do fuel the fire and profit from it.
It’s enough to make me long for the days of Douglas Edwards.
JOHN CANNON can be reached at jcannon@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2649
