24-hour News

Thanks to digital television, no longer do we require a diarrhoea-stricken week in a Vietnamese hotel room, unable to comprehend any TV channel bar CNN, to appreciate the continual nausea that is 24-hour news. This stew of commentary, opinion and speculation – simmering the same stale ingredients for days at a time – is now available free to air, providing us with as much new information as Dora the Explorer could tell you with a week-old Daily Telegraph.

When a big story breaks, the formula of 24-hour news shows its effectiveness. The scrolling marquee provides instant gratification; satisfying our need for the most up-to-date information available. Well-powdered beauties or authoritative, veteran presenters deliver the latest facts in measured, serious tones – crossing to live reporters or consulting with multiple experts. Flashy graphics seamlessly combine all elements together into an engaging display of television’s potential.

Without a big story, however, this symphony becomes a primary school music class – a room full of fumbling children tooting Three Blind Mice on plastic recorders. On slow news days, one can both pity and admire the producers of these channels. In theory, 24-hour news can perpetuate a never-ending feeling of the ‘breaking story’; gradually building on a narrative with new information. In practice, the art lies in turning the slightest skerrick of information into hours of repetitive, reactionary fluff under the guise of ‘expert analysis’*.

"How could we ever do anything evil?"

This art has proved so successful that news networks cannot resist the money-saving benefits of having a studio full of speculating talking heads in place of journalists investigating in the field. CNN established itself in the 80s and 90s as a viable news option – receiving recognition for its coverage of the First Iraq War and OJ Simpson’s flight from justice. Watch an hour of CNN today, however, and the incessant commercials about “extensive and up-to-the-minute coverage” seem more extensive than the minutes of actual coverage.

Inevitably Australian news networks will reinvent themselves into clones of Fox News or MSNBC; networks that blatantly appeal to either side of the political spectrum, blurring the line between news and opinion while simultaneously asserting their ‘fair and balanced’ coverage. A vast confusion exists between opinion and analysis – made worse by presenters spending half their time patting each other on the back with their mutual blathering and the other half refuting the opinions of their competitors. Little time or resources remain for news gathering.

The next time we have a nuclear meltdown or bushfire, appreciate that 24-hour news can aid us in times of strife and keep us updated. However, the next time a politician is asked to produce a birth certificate and it receives the same amount of coverage –beware. 24-hour news is a well-oiled machine that feasts upon our prejudices. Once we fail to see through drummed up controversy or rely on one source of information because we like what we hear, we forsake our own minds and our own judgement in the face of public relations dressed as news.

* Unlike humble online columnists.