Frontline: News War

In today's video, a variety of the best news anchors, editors and reporters that the industry has to offer admitted that the news is straying from its original stance as a public service towards more of an entertainment entity.  Although some seemed more comfortable with this new format of "journalism" than others, almost all of them admitted that this was where the industry is heading.  Ted Koppel put it best when he said (and I didn't catch the direct quote but it was along the lines of) giving the public what it wants instead of what it needs is a nice idea but will ultimately be fatal.  It's sad to think that the days of news being a public service, that wasn't "in it for the money" like everyone else, are over.  The way Frontline tells the story it seems to be due to a combination of the deregulation laws Reagan put into place in the 1980s and 60 minutes, which proved that news pieces could make significant amounts of money.  I'm sure that these factors played a big role but Frontline definitely skips over a lot of historical events and other TV shows that have made it more acceptable for the news to be more of what the people want rather than what they need.  The creation of on demand news such as CNN and the seemingly sudden American obsession with celebrity to the point of destroying any privacy they may have had.