“I am going to talk about the deterioration in the quality of journalism you see on TV,” she told the Des Moines Register. “There is less and less interest in network television today holding the White House or any other part of government accountable. I fear there is a calculation that the audiences they are trying to reach don’t care that much about the serious news. I think most of the political coverage these days has all the depth of Twitter.”
Myers, who’s also criticized the media en masse for going easy on the Obama administration and not investigating their actions thoroughly, argued that partisanship was a primary cause for said “deterioration”:
I also worry that journalists today appear to have chosen sides when it comes to political coverage. I think you see that in the
sagging approval numbers of TV news over the last few years. We’ve seen trust in the media hit its lowest level ever in 2013 or 2014 surveys and I think the lack of depth and the feeling that too many journalists have chosen sides has caused viewers to question whether we are giving it to them straight and whether we are making a politically balanced presentation.
While Myers said there was a place for entertainment journalism, “you do not see the kind of in-depth substantive policy pieces or investigations nearly as often as you used to. The stories get shorter and shorter and the sound bites get shorter and shorter.
“Look, there is a place for celebrity news, for feel good stories, all those things have a legitimate place in various newscasts, but it should not always be at the expense of the more-in-depth stories or investigations that networks used to,” she argued, adding that she wasn’t calling out any networks specifically. That said, she thinks her former employer will move on past the Brian Williams scandal. “I am not privy to the internal investigation, so I don’t know what will transpire from here,” she said, but added that “I think Andy Lack is a great choice to lead the network.”
[The Des Moines Register]
[Image via C-SPAN.org]
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