Tom Fenton Of CBS Laments State of Journalism In New Book

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A veteran foreign correspondent recently retired from CBS News after 34 years, Fenton now is sounding off about TV's neglect of global news, and the resulting benightedness of the audience he says TV journalism has so ill-served.

He has compiled his concerns in a new book, "Bad News - The Decline of Reporting, The Business of News, and the Danger To Us All" (ReganBooks).

Its central thesis: The fall of communism coincided with growing concentration of U.S. media ownership. The nation became complacent about external threats, and less vigilant. So did news media, as their corporate bosses found it hard to justify the expense of pricey foreign bureaus and legions of correspondents stationed around the globe - especially when wall-to-wall coverage of a domestic spectacle like the O.J. Simpson trial attracted far more eyeballs than a complex story from a faraway land.

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"As surely as 9/11 pointed up the myriad failures of official agencies in Washington, it also revealed the abject failure of the news media," he writes. "We had failed to warn the American public of the storm clouds approaching our shores. And in failing to do so, we betrayed the trust of the public."

http://start.earthlink.net/article/ent?guid=20050317/42390ed0_3ca6_1552620050317-1217393418

crossposting great thread by TACE

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=109&topic_id=19743#19744

:kick:

Only repeaters.