The 1990s were a watershed for television news as well. The three networks had had competition from CNN beginning in 1980, but even with (Richard Mellon Scaife’s organization) Accuracy in Media’s carping, millions of Americans still felt comfortable with hearing the news of the world every evening from one of the anchors of the Big Three networks: ABC’s Peter Jennings, CBS’s Dan Rather, or NBC’s Tom Brokaw. Although none of them ever earned the unofficial title of “most trusted man in America” that many viewers conferred on CBS’s Walter Cronkite, the trio of big anchors challenged each other but went unchallenged as a group from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s. In times of crisis, most Americans turned to them for breaking news, explanations, behind-the-scene interviews, and in-depth analysis. The big anchors held Americans’ hands during disasters, such as the 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster, or the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. During such times, the anchors knit together the scraps of information from official sources, reporters in the field, and their own observations to try to make sense of unfolding events.
At times, each was subject to criticism, often from the right, for being too tough on the nation’s leaders. Jennings defended himself, for example, from charges that he was soft on the war on Iraq, saying, “This role is designed to question the behavior of government officials on behalf of the public.” Tom Brokaw viewed his job in part as an obligation to direct “the bright light of journalistic sunshine” on the wrongs in society, prompting some people to charge bias. “Look, I’ve been dealing with this myself since the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, when reporters were accused of having a liberal bias. The fact of the matter is, if I don’t establish a bond with the NBC News audience that is based on my credibility and my integrity, then I go out of business. We’ve been doing this for a long time. NBC Nightly News still has the largest single audience of any media outlet, print and electronic, in the news business. The simple test is that if people thought I had a bias, they wouldn’t watch me,” he said. Rather described his job—the job of any reporter—as that of trying to be “an honest broker of information” who is willing to ask tough questions, remains skeptical of those in power and tries to be accurate and fair, while admitting no one can do that 100 percent of the time. “The core of the practice of journalism has to be integrity,” he said.
Mid-way through the reign of the Big Three, the American media landscape changed in fundamental ways. AIM’s single-pronged attack on American media would have been of little effect had the Federal Communications Commission not dropped its rules requiring broadcasters to provide balanced programming. The fairness doctrine, as it was called, required equal time for opposing points of view in the programming of broadcast stations. The FCC based the doctrine on the philosophy that a broadcasting license was a public trust and its holder owed a duty to the public to provide balanced discussion of important issues. Broadcast journalists complained that the balancing requirement unduly constrained their First Amendment freedoms and kept them from reporting on controversial topics. Furthermore, during Ronald Reagan’s administration, the philosophy of deregulating all government-regulated industries and allowing the rules of the marketplace to function ruled in Washington. In 1987, the FCC stopped enforcing the fairness doctrine. Federal courts upheld the commission’s decision.
The disappearance of the fairness doctrine opened the airwaves to a flood of new programming—political commentary, especially right-wing political commentary. In 1988, Rush Limbaugh took his flamboyant AM radio talk show into national syndication through media giant Clear Channel Communications. Freed from the responsibility of presenting a range of viewpoints, broadcast stations aired Limbaugh’s attacks on liberals and the “liberal media” without opportunity for rebuttal. The formula for conservative talk radio consisted of vigorous attacks that demonized liberal politicians and liberal ideas and undermined the credibility of mainstream media by labeling them liberal as well. Limbaugh indoctrinated his listeners with the belief that only he told the unvarnished truth and the media (of which he, in somewhat of a contradiction, denied being a part) was biased. Limbaugh’s attacks were designed to induce outrage in his listeners, to advance a conservative agenda, and to drive liberal ideas underground.
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