Reality Television, Journalism Collide

My wife and I are shameless reality television show junkies. We'll watch just about anything, from island survivors to hapless wanna-be cooks to a bunch of beautiful people stuck in a camera-rich house with little or no contact with the outside.
The latest reality-TV stunt, according to Yahoo news, entails a model and former World Wrestling Entertainment bimbo doing an anchor stint for the CBS affiliate in Tyler. Despite it being a CBS affiliate, the reality series will air on Fox.
That's some strange bedfellows, for sure.
The TV-personality-in-the-making, Lauren Jones, will undergo training and then co-anchor the 5 p.m. newscast. The show might premiere in August if the network deems it worthy.
The show already has sparked arguments over whether it will erode journalism's credibility and sanctity, despite the fact that we've already done a lion's share of the damage to ourselves.
Speaking on behalf of Tyler's ABC affiliate, General Manager Brad Streit accused its competitor of selling its integrity. Mike DeLier, his counterpart at the NBC station, called it a publicity stunt and not a journalistic endeavor.
Al Tompkins, a guy I know from the esteemed Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla., said the show "devalues the work of real journalists who are trying to do real work," according to the Yahoo story.
In response, the CBS GM Phil Hurley laughed off the criticism and noted how much media attention is paid to Paris Hilton, who had a hit reality show herself in "The Simple Life." Hurley even acknowledged that "it's going to be comedy."
It's that last statement that makes this an unfortunate endeavor. If Fox is shooting for a broadcast-news version of "The Simple Life," I hope the show never gets aired.
I don't have a problem with the overall idea, and I've known many a TV station to favor looks over skill and experience when it comes to hiring staffers, so I don't think there's much argument there.
When's the last time you saw a TV anchor who looked like Granny from "The Beverly Hillbillies"?
A friend today sent me a link to the Yahoo story and asked me what I thought. My friend is about as liberal as they come and enjoys engaging in political arguments and feather-ruffling anywhere and everywhere he can. I'm sure we'll have quite the fiery e-mail exchange by late afternoon.
But rather than express outrage over the concept, I opined that it could actually be a great idea if done right.
Universities today as whole teach philosophy over practical application when it comes to journalism. Instead of making the students go cover a council meeting, they too often make the kids ponder the meaning of it all.
Subsequently, every spring I get a pile of applications from graduating seniors with 4.0 grade-point averages and not a single newspaper clip to show me what they can do. If someone hires them, they're going to require a lot of hand-holding and constant guidance.
In other words, they'll be trained from scratch, much like Lauren Jones will be. With so much exposure and publicity at stake, she might even get some damn good training.
During the 1990s, I spent almost four years as editor of a weekly newspaper, where the rubber hits the community road. Having to hire people became one of the least pleasant aspects of my job. I got the applicants who couldn't get a job on a daily, and most of them were the 4.0s with barely a clip to show for it.
So we became a sink-or-swim boot camp. Many succeeded, but others failed. For the failures, I sat them down in my office, told them I didn't think they had what it takes and then gave them some time to find something else. They always did, and they always thanked me for pushing them in that direction, which usually tripled their salaries.
In addition to training journalists at the weekly, I also had the headache of a massive news hole and no wire service, so I assembled an army of stringers, free lancers, contributors, etc., to send me a river of information from their respective worlds. I got plant columns from the agriculture extension guy. I had little old ladies covering rural communities. I had sixth-graders writing stuff about their schools.
What I learned is that you can teach just about anybody to be a nuts-and-bolts journalist. Get the facts. Make it accurate. Write simple. Subject-verb-object.
It reminds me of Linus talking to Charlie Brown about pitching. Charlie wants to do all kinds of crazy pitching, and Linus says it'll be fast balls, slow balls and curve balls only.
That's how I teach the green reporters: Facts. Accuracy. Keep it simple. Don't get overwhelmed thinking about every conceivable angle. You'll get to that once you can master the simple stuff.
If Fox wanted to do their show in my newsroom, this is how I would approach it. Just give me someone intelligent, stable and eager to learn, and I'll teach them how to be a reporter.
I don't see this as an insult to the trained journalists. In a hiring environment, their college degrees and experience obviously give them an insurmountable edge over non-journalists.
But the reality show would give our newspaper publicity and perhaps spotlight the kind of training and passion that too often fails to occur in the college setting. It might get more
Unfortunately, this will never happen.
Why?
Because it wouldn't make sensational, popular television in this day and age, so the showmakers would be left to come up with stunts, silliness and inaccurate portrayals to satisfy the reality-show junkies in us all.

Here's the link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070611/tv_nm/foxreality_dc;_ylt=AgA6.IzFmq0bbWqdloYLgWVY24cA