Television news director blogs are a growing sector of new media, and I wish I’d had one back in the days when I was in that chair. A news director’s view of culture is unique, and what they have to say is an important part of the news conversation, just as are blogs by editors and publishers.

In Eugene, Oregon, news director Jenny Kuglin blogs at Fisher-owned KVAL-TV and this week posted an important thought about news audiences these days. I strongly recommend you read this – and especially the comments – because she’s nailed a very important cultural “problem” today. She asks a question that I want to try an answer: “Viewer anger: What is behind influx of rude and angry comments?”

Over the years, I’ve gotten used to the negative feedback. In fact, I really appreciate it when people comment on our stories — or our people — because it gives me a chance to find out what our viewers are thinking.

When someone tells us we are wrong, and we are, I make reporters and anchors go on-air and apologize. If someone asks us a question that I feel other people might have, too, we address it on-air. This is important transparency for a skeptical society.

But I’ve been noticing a fairly disturbing trend lately. People are being mean in greater numbers than I’ve ever experienced before. I’ve also been personally screamed at, called names, and hung up on countless times. So have other members of my staff. I’ve talked to other people in the news business, and they are reporting the same trend.

I published an essay in the fall of 1998 upon retiring from TV News that is pertinent to Ms. Kuglin’s question. In “The Lizard on America’s Shoulder,” I borrowed a metaphor from C.S. Lewis in “The Great Divorce” about a ghost with a lizard on his shoulder trying to enter heaven. The lizard relentlessly whispered filth in the ghost’s ear, but when the angel attempts to remove it (“You can’t go in there with that!”), the ghost jumped back and said, “Don’t touch my lizard.” It’s all about the comfort of familiarity, regardless of its effect on the individual.

Local television news, I wrote, is the lizard on America’s shoulder, and so I think a part of this anger that she feels is a direct response to the kinds of things we’re delivering to people day-in and day-out. When the first ten minutes of “the news” night-after-night is man’s inhumanity to man, it has a negative impact on the psychological well-being of the audience, although I can’t cite you chapter and verse on how. I have many friends who’ve given up watching the news, and, to a person, they describe a more peaceful life.

But this is only part of the answer. The much bigger response is that the people formerly known as the audience (TPFKATA) are now able to do something about it. Everybody is a media company today, and that anger now has outlets that it never had before. What Ms. Kuglin is experiencing is an empowered culture able to do something about their anger, and that is something new under the sun. We’re all connected, and information is at our finger tips. That some people are exceptionally ugly is, well, welcome to the human race.

I think this is going to get worse, because it’s bigger than just the news. There is an incredible dissatisfaction with the fruit of the modern era. People look around a see nothing but failure. One tenth of our labor force is out of work, and all around people see our institutions gasping for survival. Created to serve the common good, institutions now find themselves completely self-centered, and the people know it. Nobody’s in it for us; everybody’s in it for themselves.

We’re in the midst of the second Gutenberg moment in the West. The dawning of the age of participation (what I call “postmodernism”) is upon us. We’re tired, for example, of the relentless carpet bombing of marketing, and so we’re fighting back. Why, Ms. Kuglin? Because we can.

We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore. You think the last ten years have been interesting? Wait until you see what’s coming.

I appreciate your courage in bringing it up. Keep up the great work.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 26th, 2010 at 9:39 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.