Channel 2 anchor Michelle King ascends into the Valhalla of broadcasting- if there is such a thing- at the end of the November sweeps. Her retirement, combined with Channel 5 KSL’s Dick Nourse at the same time, dramatize a brutal reality in TV news: their audience and their staffs are literally dying off. The average TV news viewer is now more than 60 years old. The number of viewers continues a steep decline it’s suffered for more than 25 years. The departure of King, Nourse, Eubank, Wood, Todd, et al is symptomatic of a crisis throughout television but particularly in TV news: basically, a population crisis. Fewer kids are becoming news people because the pay is lousy, the hours are long, and the oppression and corruption of the absentee corporate owners of TV stations is greater than ever. Add the rapidly dwindling audience and younger generations hooked on computers and you have the quintessential recipe for disaster. Colleges and universities are dumping journalism for lack of interest. Bottom line: time’s running out for reformists to save the craft. And as on-line reporting grows, maybe it’s, sadly, for the best.
Since 2005, My View of Media and Life: It's Not the Camera That's Most Important, It's the Lens
