The Joys Of Journalism

The Joys Of Journalism

Oriana Fallaci, the late and legendary Italian journalist who died in 2006, was a role model to others who followed her. She likened journalism to history- saying that it was history being written, simultaneously, to events as they unfolded. She didn’t seem to need the perspective of time and reflection. She turned out a huge body of work over decades, travelling the world doing it, generating controversies with some of her views, writing books too, all with signature passion and flair.

Of course, she had the privilege to interview a galaxy of heads of state, policy makers, big wheels of government, between and betwixt lesser folk.  Fallaci did not take herself very seriously. She didn’t think that journalists were great influencers much as they might like to be. She likened their efforts to barking dogs that nobody took any real notice of.  

Fallaci said this in a TV interview to Michael Wallace, a pioneer in opinionated TV journalism. Wallace was most famous for anchoring CBS’ 60 Minutes, being its first and most celebrated anchor. The programme was so successful as “magazine news”, under him; that as many as six other networks put in me-too shows, to compete, till there was a surfeit and glut.

Wallace himself was an irreverent departure from the magisterial news-style of a Walter Cronkite, also on CBS, who along with other senior TV News presenters of the time, thought of 60 Minutes as “Show Business”. That Wallace did commercials for many products in between his newsman stints, made the orthodox regard him as a mere “pitch-man”.

But handsome, Bogartian Mike Wallace, with his cigarette, smoke rising in the air, in those early black and white broadcasts, his sharp questioning, was, by today’s standards, almost donnish.

Now it is routine to shout and pillory, most famously on Fox News, a Rupert Murdoch owned US Channel,that came later. But Fox News, much more extreme, had Wallace call it op-ed on air. He said this to the Fox   anchor he was interviewing, registering eyebrow raised surprise. But then, Fox News only appeared after a straight run of a couple of decades of 60 Minutes - with Mike Wallace.

Both Fallaci and Wallace, the early birds, were no great fans of objective reporting. Instead, they thought the best way to uncover the truth, such as it is, was by asking pointed questions to their interviewees and slanting the narrative.

Fallaci, appearing mostly in print, usually proceeded to play both judge and jury in her articles.  Henry Kissinger, whose interview with Fallaci appeared in Playboy Magazine, thought the exchange was a disaster for him. He was quoted as seeing himself as the lone advance-riding cowboy leading the wagon train of governance. It is anybody’s guess what President Richard Nixon thought of this analogy from the mouth of his Secretary of State.

Today, not only the TV anchors, but many of their regular panellists on TV news shows around the world, fancy themselves as cheer-leaders and crusaders after the truth as they see it.

There is a strenuous and blatant effort to influence the audience with opinion and rhetoric rather than the more prosaic facts. But then, from the very early days of the 1950s, TV News, with its ability to come into the living and bedrooms of the viewers, evolved quickly into a dose of drama and stimulation. There were the day-time soap operas to compete with.

Print struggles to remain current even in the dailies today let alone weeklies  and magazines  with longer timelines. It has been joined, like a swarm of bees, by digital websites with the ability to quickly upload their articles.

And the digital websites and broadcast TV, in turn, find themselves competing with both the written and visual social media working alongside, with little or no censorship.

Even if a video is proscribed by the government, it has often gone viral and has been absorbed by thousands, by the time the action to take it down has been completed.

News is indeed instant history as Fallaci had it, beyond the reach of the lobbies for or against it to block it out. Today it floats around forever in cyberspace for anyone to look at for as long as the sphere lasts. This even if the originator attempts to delete any pictures or views no longer thought of as kosher.

But there is an awful lot of it. And so, the only differentiator left to the media practitioner today is skill. TV news commentary is only as snappy and compelling as the news editors behind the scenes can make it.

Except for those anchors who write their own script, most junior presenters read what is prepared for them off a teleprompter. Of course, in certain formats such as rapid news, presenters can, and do bring a good deal of style and cadence to the delivery.

Their guests, as panellists on TV debates too, are furnished by the guest relations teams of the network. Anchors, except for the top ones, have little influence here. But on their part, if the guests are articulate, and can think fast “on their feet”, they start to distinguish themselves in this Live medium. And over time, they find themselves in demand as reliable sounding boards for various channels.

Expertise alone however, does not hack it. There are seasoned diplomats that cannot explain foreign policy on TV in a ten to thirty second soundbyte. They are probably perfectly good at writing reports and books, and giving learned lectures.

It is an old truism that most print journalists are uncomfortable, rambling and not very personable on TV. Of course, this works the other way around too. TV journalists with considerable presence,  are often not very good op-ed writers. Nor are they exactly scintillating on social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.  That seems to take a different kind of connect.

The “truth” however, is out there for the taking for the ambidextrous one. He or she can traverse galaxies explored and unexplored and plant personal flags across media landscapes.

But the neanderthals stand out too. It is most glaring when a person is an official spokesperson for a political party, but cannot make a good case for it. And there do seem to be a lot of such untrained and ineffective spokies out on the rounds. One wonders what process of proximity to whom got them their mischance to represent their Party?  

Very few programmes can be pre-recorded for broadcast later, given the pace of the unfolding news and the competition. This is true of all except the special interviews. But when even these are broadcast Live in the 60Minutes fashion, they attract much higher TRPs.

This is understandably difficult to do with current heads of state, who like to vet the questions in advance. But it works well enough with ministers, other politicians, CEOs, spokespersons, celebrities, who are glad enough to be featured.

Why does anyone work in journalism? Is it about uncovering the truth? Wallace said he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he wasn’t working. And because he needed pills for his clinical depression. 

But most journalists, even the disgraced ones, don’t quit because they don’t know how to write their own obituaries.

(1,192 words)

April 26^th, 2020

Gautam Mukherjee