RALEIGH — What’s with the network news organizations?
Cable news is a wonderful innovation, and it keeps us news junkies from going into media withdrawal. But it remains a way of communicating with a relatively small number of political active Americans. It is still not a mass medium.
Broadcast networks are the only feasible way of engaging a large share of the population in the public policy debate. But just minutes after President George W. Bush completed his historic White House address March 17, announcing our country’s plans for war in Iraq, both CBS and NBC had already returned to regular programmng. CBS was showing a sitcom, for crying out loud. NBC would likely argue that its cable properties, MSNBC and CNBC, were sufficient to the task and allowed the broadcast network to bail. I don’t agree. This is war. The lives of thousands and the freedom of millions are at stake.
Meanwhile, ABC News with Peter Jennings was doing a bang-up job of following up the president’s ultimatum to Saddam Hussein — interviewing its correspondents around Washington, in London, and in the Middle East and inviting a parade of military analysts and other experts to comment on various aspects of the situation.
ABC did its job Monday night. The other two major TV networks were missing in action.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.