On Wednesday night, an alumnus speaking at Beta Theta Pi discussed the challenge faced by traditional news media due to technological advances like 24-hour news channels and online weblogs.
“Traditional news media are reckoning with an abrupt shift in viewers,” said Richard Hanley ’93, graduate program director and assistant professor of journalism in the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University.
The lecture focused on the state of modern news media and though it was given in front of a small crowd, it covered a range of issues accompanied with possible responses pertaining to the news media today.
Hanley said the battle between journalism of assertion and journalism of verification was particularly defining for the state of the industry.
According to Hanley, journalism of assertion refers to opinionated-saturated broadcasts, like cable news. In contrast, journalism of verification connotes the relatively objective media, like newspapers and network news.
Central to Hanley’s argument was his particular admiration for the techniques used by Fox News.
“[Fox News’] news reports are the equivalent of newsreels from the 50s: fast-paced news, the breathless voice of an anchor, bifurcated by animal attack clips,” he said.
Hanley also said that Fox News deserved praise for creating a continuous narrative of news for its audience.
“Because supply is short, stories have to be ongoing,” Hanley said. “Even obituaries are updateable.”
According to Hanley, the way newspapers drop and pick up everyday new stories disrupts the narrative flow of news, whereas Fox News presents stories over long periods of time, making the audience more comfortable with the material.
The small crowd of students responded warmly to the talk.
“Professor Hanley was a great person to start the fall lecture series,” said Michael Frank ’08, a Beta brother who sought out Hanley over the summer and organized the lecture. “His speech was engaging and I felt like he showed great expertise, as well as sense of humor, in answering the audience’s questions.”
Hanley graduated from Wesleyan with a masters degree in social science. Aside from teaching, he is a six-time Emmy nominee for his documentaries, and he writes op-ed pieces for several publications, including the Christian Science Monitor. In addition, he has appeared on numerous cable news programs, including The O’Reilly Factor.
“The most interesting part was about constantly updating news,” said Andrew Rozas ’06, who stayed after the speech to chat with Hanley for several minutes.
The rest of Hanley’s talk focused on the strengths and weaknesses of news media as a whole. He was skeptical about the sustainability of amateur news blogs.
“Journalism is hard,” he said. “It’s hard to do it when it’s your part time job.”
Hanley said that some bloggers have been outstanding, especially Kevin Sites who now works for a Yahoo! section called “In The Hotzone.” During the question-and-answer session, he tabbed CBS as the network most likely to do something drastic with the anchor chair, and he briefly touched on the future of the network anchor.
“Anchors will never have the audience and the standing that Brokaw, Jennings, or Kronkite once had,” Hanley said. “Jon Stewart is not out of the question.”
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