Former CBS News Director, Marcy McGinnis delivered an informative but moving lecture with implications that expand beyond the scope of the lecture. Her experience in news reporting began at the age of 21 when she delivered her first story on Apollo 14. Such an accomplishment makes us wonder, what will we be doing at the age of 21? It makes us question ourselves as a media source, why aren’t we on television?
Broadcast journalism made its debut in the 1940s. It was popularized by Edward R. Murrow, whose 1954 report on Joseph McCarthy made simultaneous transmission a possibility. People in the West Coast didn’t have to wait for their regional newspapers to report the same news.
Ironically, broadcast journalism is still young. It has yet to develop the reach of newspapers, magazines, or even online blogs. Yet, broadcast journalism is unique in its ability to visualize, and not just verbalize. The most captivating events of our time are still fresh in our memories because television has had them on an almost never-ending loop.
Most newspaper stories, on the other hand, will not stay in our long-term memories. Even the Woodward and Bernstein expose on the Watergate scandal continues to stick as a national phenomenon after numerous documentaries revived the whole story.
Stony Brook attempts to imitate television reporting through SBU-TV. Although we admit SBU-TV isn’t comparable to major news stations such as CBS, SBU-TV still has a lot of potential.
Consider, for example, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a neurologist who writes regularly for Time Magazine. In addition to this, Gupta does science-related reporting for CNN. Both sources use Gupta’s expertise to deliver information to an audience that is willing to take it both ways.
Today, broadcast journalism has become a pervasive medium for information. It is now a popular career option. The lure of a handsome salary and opportunity to become popular quicker, attracts reporters to the television side of media. Not everyone has a television, and not everyone prefers the occasionally dramatized or biased reporting that broadcast journalism introduces. Yet, the implications of such a medium are so vast that if other media do not tap into it, it is their loss.
