Abstract
Writing about media in the 21st century can be compared to photographing a football match while riding a carousel: both the target and the ground are moving. Steven Cushion’s extensive effort to pin down the relevance of television news in the new media environment, therefore, is a commendable achievement. Television Journalism (part of the Sage series Journalism Studies: Key Texts) provides readers with a detailed and valuable empirical portrait of an industry in transition.
Television Journalism sets out to contextualize television news globally, though the book draws primarily from the United States and the UK and has a decidedly British accent. This comprehensive work draws from the empirical literature, institutional publications and a variety of surveys and content analyses to present a substantial exploration of its subject.
Chapter One argues, effectively, that in spite of the rise of internet news, television remains a powerful social force worldwide and indeed remains the primary source of news for many around the world. In Chapter Two, Cushion provides an invaluable history of television regulation in the UK and the USA. This chapter in particular might be of tremendous value to graduate level classes in the political economy of media. Chapter Three draws from a wide collection of content analyses and other data to assess the nature of 24-hour rolling news. Rolling news’ heavy reliance on live shots, spot news, and the price paid in accuracy is something that Cushion notes seems to be (sadly) an accepted form of collateral damage by its producers.
Television Journalism’s fourth chapter examines the rise of partisan news, particularly in the USA, where abandonment of the Fairness Doctrine gave rise to the ‘Fox Effect’ and its impact on television news content. Cushion notes that the ‘Fox Effect’ and its corollary in American TV, the comedic ‘news’ program, exemplify an irony of journalism: stratified media choices do not necessarily better inform the polity. Cushion’s emphasis on the role of the Fairness Doctrine may overshadow other changes in the American news environment that have contributed to the rise of partisan television fare, such as the relaxation of ownership rules and cross-platform distribution. In this chapter and throughout the book, distinctions between cable, satellite and terrestrial television (and by extension, broadband and mobile video delivery) are bypassed in favor of more thorough examination of the role of television news in national political discourse.
In Chapter Five, Television Journalism focuses on how UK television is contending with political devolution. As a case study, this chapter serves to exemplify the way ‘light touch’ regulation may not be adequate for ensuring news coverage of local politics. With implications for American television, where local TV operates under an even lighter touch, Cushion’s findings echo those of other scholars who have found local TV journalism to be shockingly neglectful of political and community news. Television Journalism gives scant treatment to local television news in the USA, not a small problem considering that local news remains the primary source of news for most Americans. Missing are considerations of the impact that ratings ‘sweeps’ months have on local content, the increase in local news program offerings and the closures of local television newsrooms in some American markets.
The book might disappoint a reader interested in work of television journalists. There is little in the volume that describes the nature of video narrative or the routines of a television newsroom. In Chapter Six, Cushion uses income and demographic data to provide a portrait of television journalists with special attention to issues of race and gender. This chapter also examines journalism education in the UK and the USA and summarizes international data on the regard with which journalists are held by audiences. Television Journalism presents a clear picture of who these people are, how much they make and how they are trained, but the book does not address to any large extent, what it is that they do. Except for occasional references to the fact that journalists are being asked to multi-task and do more with less generally, the book focuses less on the processes of television journalism and more on its product.
Cushion concludes the volume by examining the trajectory of journalism studies with regard to television, using a content analysis as evidence that academics have poured much of their energy and resources into studying internet, mobile and social media in spite of television news’ ‘current and continued’ influence. To the ear of this ‘hackademic’, (a term Cushion explains is used to describe former journalists who enter the ivory tower) the argument of Chapter Seven sounds a bit like that of a politician complaining that TV news never covers smooth traffic or lower crime rates. For even though national television remains the world’s dominant cultural player and the nature of the news product is largely influenced by old media structures, the impact of the internet and mobile media on audience habits and the practice of TV journalism is profound – as those many studies of new media have noted. Cushion’s historical narrative of the way TV news has been studied over time, however, provides valuable context and serves as a reminder that it is too soon to dismiss its importance.
Television Journalism delivers, quite completely, on what it promises: an in-depth examination of its subject’s history and political economy, the education of its practitioners, and the medium’s 21st-century challenges. For readers in need of a broad picture of television news internationally, its history, regulation and tone, Television Journalism proves invaluable. This carefully crafted, empirical work provides its readers with a solid, large-scale view of television news and its role in democracy. By staying ‘wide’, as photographers say and working with the big picture, Cushion has managed to hit his moving target while riding the carousel that is today’s media environment.