Twenty years ago, while writing a retrospective on
Kolchak: The
Night Stalker, I had an epiphany. Journalists are only powerful to
the extent the public cares about their reporting. Should people not
trust journalists -- or trust them, but not share their concern for an
issue -- the journalist's influence evaporates.
Today that might not seem like much of
an insight. Journalists are fervently "exposing" this or that about
Trump, or Russia, or whatever. But much to their frustration, many
people ignore their exposés. Partially it's because people don't trust
journalists. And partially it's that, even when people believe the
"facts" as reported, they don't care. So what if Trump is obnoxious
and a bully? So is the other side. So what if he's arresting border
crossers? They broke the law. So what if Trump talked to Putin? So did
Obama and Hillary. World leaders talk. So what?
People make up their own minds about
what's important. Wasn't it always so?
No. There was a time when people not
only trusted journalists on the facts, they trusted journalists'
judgments as to which facts were newsworthy. After
The New York
Times published the
Pentagon Papers (helping end the Vietnam War),
after The Washington Post investigated
Watergate (helping end
the
Nixon presidency), and about when
Walter "the most trusted man in
America" Cronkite anchored CBS News, American popular culture reached
a zenith in idolizing journalists.
Never before or since have
reporters been so celebrated. From
All the President's Men
(1976) to TVs
Lou Grant (1977-82), reporters were Hollywood
heroes.
Three Days of the Condor
(1975) ends with Robert Redford bringing his evidence against the CIA
to The New York Times.
Once the Times has it,
you know the CIA is toast.
Even horror shows celebrated reporters'
integrity and power.
Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-75)
featured an investigative reporter who, each week, discovered some
unearthly menace. It could be supernatural, or monster, machine, or
alien. Karl Kolchak always dug up the truth. And then ended each
episode by telling us, the viewers, how his story had been suppressed.
Why suppress Kolchak's news reporting?
Because it's both true and powerful. It matters. People care. Nobody
bothers to suppress the impotent and irrelevant. That's why, despite
the censors' victory each week,
Kolchak is ultimately an
optimistic show. It assumes that, if only one got "the truth" out to
the public, everyone would see it, agree on it, and rise up to change
things.
This notion that people will change
their minds if only they hear your story is assumed in many tales. In
Atlas Shrugged, John Galt's radio speech converts America to
Objectivism. In
1984, Winston Smith contemplates the proles'
ability to overthrow Big Brother if only they knew
the truth.
In the hilariously inept
Born in Flames (1983), an armed cadre
of radical feminists invade a TV network control booth, forcing
technicians to broadcast their taped speech.
The film is full of their
speeches. The notion that watching one would convert the American
masses to revolutionary Marxist feminism (or whatever their niche
ideology was called -- it's been a while since I saw the film) is
optimistic to the point of psychotic self-delusion.
In the 1970s, Hollywood depicted
journalists as sincere truth seekers, and the public as ever ready to
believe. This was doubly optimistic on Hollywood' part, seeing that
movie journalist always dug up liberal truths.
Network (1976)
was a rare film from that era to disagree. The film predicts that
money, ratings, and stardom will corrupt journalism. It didn't. It
made things worse, but journalists, and their employers, were never
the noble truth seekers of (recent) Hollywood legend.
Today
Network is admired for its
prescience. Yet The Howling
(1981) was more prescient, despite its being a low budget horror film.
The Howling predicts there will come a time when people will be
so jaded, they will not believe what newscasters tell them -- or even
show them. The film ends with a newscaster (Dee Wallace)
breaking a story about werewolves. And she has proof. She transforms
into a werewolf, even arranging to be shot and killed on the air. But
her death is in vain. Viewers see it and shrug it off. If it's on TV,
it can't be trusted.
Who today trusts TV news? Last week,
KFI-AM's John and Ken were laughing over the frustration of Trump
haters in the news media. They publish and broadcast an avalanche of
anti-Trump stories, filled with photos and video, and Trump's approval
ratings increase. Even when Trump's fans trust the alleged facts being
reported, they don't think it's
important. So what if CBS News thinks their latest story is of
earth-shattering significance?
Walter Cronkite is dead.
When I was a child growing up in the
1970s, journalists were gods and heroes. It hadn't always been so. It
wasn't destined to last.