It's common knowledge that a majority of Americans get their news from 
TV. We turn to the tube for a quick (and entertaining) update on world, national and, to a lesser degree, local news. When there's major breaking news, TV puts us right there as it's happening.
The producers of the the network news programs, as well as those in charge of local newscasts at the 1,600 commercial TV stations throughout the nation, make daily decisions that shape what we see and, thus, what we know and think about what is happening around us. It is an awesome journalistic responsibility that I believe most take seriously.
When ratings and ad rates come into play, however, that responsibility too often seems to get compromised.
Why else would some producers decide to lead with the latest news of who may have fathered Anna Nicole's baby, rather than legitimate stories on the 
war in Iraq, the hunt for Osama (remember him?), ongoing horror in Darfur, or economic, education, and health news here at home? Is it more important for you and I to know about the three dozen prescription drugs the trainwreck of a pseudo-celebrity had in her body, or how many of our neighbors are at risk to lose their homes because they got trapped in a variable-rate mortgage. Likewise, do we need to know whether or not Paris Hilton wore panties to a late-night party, instead of gaining a better insight into how our schools are failing to educate so many of our neediest young people?
The Radio-Television News Directors Association is meeting this week in Las Vegas, where they give out awards for excellence in journalism. Don't get me wrong -- there is a lot of excellence in TV news.
But perhaps many of those news directors need to heed the words of one of their honorees, Christiane Amanpour of CNN, as quoted in this week's Television Week.
TV Week quotes Amanpour, from a talk she gave at the RTNDA meeting in 2000, "decrying the financial pressures from corporate overseers that had pushed journalists into what she called 'the fight of our lives to save the profession we love.'"
"The cost-cutters, the money managers and the advertisers...(must) give us the room to operate in a way that is meaningful, otherwise we will be folding our tents and slinking off into the sunset," she said. She reminded us that if journalists are unable to bear witness, "then the bad people will win."
The trade journal quotes Amanpour on the current state of the news business. "The extensive coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith symbolizes the problem, she said, as the bar gets higher for serious and foreign stories to get on the air. The business, she now says, 'has veered into a direction I didn't imagine possible. The triumph of sensational and silly and entertainment over news is complete.'"
Sensational and silly and entertainment has its place. Syndicated entertainment shows like Access Hollywood and ET, or an entire E! channel on cable do a good job of covering that, as do the gossip pages of the newspapers. The difference in newspapers, though, is that they can, if they choose, add pages so the real news is not pushed aside by the sensational.
Except for huge breaking stories, TV has a finite news hole -- 30 minutes, an hour. If it's filled with the likes of Anna Nicole and Paris, and you include sports and weather reports that take 4 minutes to tell you it's gonna rain tomorrow, there's not a lot left for the real news. That's up to the news directors and the producers.
Commercial TV is, above all, a business. But the companies that run the networks and the stations are using the public airwaves and should be responsible to inform the public they serve. If the networks and all the stations used proper news judgement, rather than entertainment value=ratings=ad dollars judgement, they'd all be on a level playing field in terms of attracting viewers. Maybe then they'd win audience based on how well they report and interpret the news, instead of how much gossip, sex and sensationalism they can cram into it.
I know, I'm being unrealistic. But don't you think something's got to change?
. (See update below -- April 19th)
Update: April 19th Noon
Speaking of integrity, NBC News faced a tough call when they received a package from the student who killed 32 at Virginia Tech. I think they acted responsibly by calling the FBI immediately. Did they do the right thing to air parts of the madman's video? I'm not sure, and for many people the jury is still out. There's some interesting discussion over at Mediabistro.com, as I'm sure there is elsewhere.
Feel free to add your thoughts on this to the comments below.