Anderson Cooper strips down and spray tans with Jersey Shore's Snooki
Newscasters' celebrity double duty 'undermining the credibility' of journalism
Television journalist Anderson Cooper poses for a portrait while being measured for a wax figure by Madame Tussauds in New York, June 7, 2011.
Photograph by: LUCAS JACKSON, REUTERS
There are certain credentials one expects of a serious newscaster, and Anderson Cooper has most of them including an Ivy League education, collection of prestigious journalism awards, and more passport stamps than Carmen Sandiego.
He also has one you wouldnt expect: the experience of having stripped down on national TV to spray-tan with Jersey Shore star Snooki.
In an atmosphere of unprecedented competition, newscasters are required not only to be reliable but also relatable. As a result, activities that once might have trashed credibility are now being welcomed as opportunities to reach new viewers.
The September debut of daytime program Anderson commanded the second-highest ratings for a talk show premiere in five years, behind only Dr. Oz in 2009. The newsmans more staid evening show, Anderson Cooper 360, meanwhile saw a 36 per cent bump in viewership for the month.
This notion that a reporter cant have a frivolous side of their life, or opinions on things, is kind of artificial and were seeing it break down, says Robert Thompson, founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.
A lot of news junkies may feel more superior that they find watching CNN or Fox News or MSNBC entertaining while their friends are watching The Bachelor, but everything is show business.
Of course, crossover acts are hardly new. Barbara Walters, Geraldo Rivera, Julie Chen and Katie Couric have all, at some point, traversed the line between serious news and more superficial entertainment.
Thompson notes that even the great Edward R. Murrow a newsman whose name was synonymous with stoicism and integrity saw his highest ratings with Person to Person, a pop culture show that pioneered the celebrity interview.
However, thanks to the combined forces of lowered attention spans, greater competition and vertical media integration, Thompson says the trend has never been more blatant, or unapologetic. And with YouTube allowing otherwise fleeting moments to endure forever, the strategy can backfire as much as it can boost.
Since joining this season of Dancing with the Stars, Nancy Grace HLNs pit bull legal commentator has captured viewers for all the wrong reasons: first, for an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction, and later, for appearing to have broken wind on live television.
(The trend) is a horrible comment on our society, and on what people are willing to accept, says Steven Miller, coordinator of undergraduate studies in journalism and media studies at Rutgers University. Journalism is supposed to be serving the public to raise the level of intellectual discourse; its not there to take it down to the lowest common denominator.
Miller concedes that crossover acts make sense through the lens of vertical integration, with corporations wanting to get the most bang for their buck across all platforms. But hes nonetheless nostalgic for the days in which anchors were conduits of news and not the news themselves.
When you use a journalist for entertainment purposes, youre not only undermining the credibility of that person but also of the entire news department, says Miller. At 9 a.m., Anderson Cooper is Ellen DeGeneres; but at eight-o-clock (at night), hes supposed to be Walter Cronkite?
Danielle Stern, assistant professor of media studies at Christopher Newport University in Virginia, agrees the increasingly blurred boundaries are surely problematic. But she says its also important to consider the positive impact: the trend could foster greater media savvy by forcing viewers to consider how they get their news, and from whom.
Media audiences have to pay closer attention to discern these dual roles, says Stern. Journalists that have built a pop culture fan base are delivering a different product for which they feel theres a market, which ratings data would indicate is true in many cases.
mharris@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/popcultini