The Cost of Doing Business

Coming up on this weekends show:

• The Presidents Council on Sexual Fitness
• Sponsorship of Gay Pride Parades
• Many Special Announcements
• Childhood memories desecrated

I have a proposition for the FCC, either define once and for all what counts as news or stop requiring broadcast stations to broadcast news in the public interest. As it stands now, the FCC is essentially mandating a daily Paris Hilton update.

For those of you who aren't up on the history of the FCC, the reason every station broadcasts news is that they have to. They've never made money broadcasting news, it's never drawn as many people as entertainment but they used to look at it as the price of doing business.

They get to use the public airwaves, that's airwaves that technically, you and I own, in a way that basically lets them print money. They're allowed to use it because we let them. We figured they're willing to buy transmitters and we want to see Jack Benny so let's allow them to use our airwaves but the FCC mandates that because they make money off of our airwaves, broadcasters should be required to contribute to the public interest by keeping us updated on what is happening.

There was a time when it was simply accepted as the cost of doing business and even though they didn't make money with news, networks found they could win awards and enhance the value of their corporate brand by having beloved newscasters and good journalism. Think of the kind of reporting that was done by Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite and then compare that to today's top "journalists" Chris Hanson from 'To Catch a Predator"? The Daily Show?

Over time broadcast companies and stations got cocky. They figured since they're making so much money and since TV is so ensconced in American life, they shouldn't have to pay the price of doing business anymore. They started cutting news budgets, stopped investing in news bureaus and started trying to make the news more like entertainment.

Now, the news is virtually nothing but entertainment anyway. We should either tighten the restrictions on what should count as news or let them use that time to do real entertainment. I feel like I can almost guarantee that once they don't have to even pretend to cover news, we'll hear a whole lot less about the Paris Hiltons or Anna Nicole Smiths of this world and maybe the remaining news sources can go back to reporting on the news.

By the way, this new thing of not wanting to pay the cost of doing business, is running rampant through our society. Every corporation these days wants a handout. It used to be that health insurance and retirement benefits were seen as a cost of doing business. No one would work without those things.

I guess we the people, have just lowered our standards to the point past which we feel we can raise them again. Ah well, democracy is as good as the people taking part, eh?