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American Morning

Carl Gottlieb's Views on Media Coverage

Aired June 27, 2001 - 10:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Going to take a step back now and look at some of the high-profile cases that have been getting so much coverage in the media in the last week and looking at what kind of job the media is doing.

We're going to do that with Carl Gottlieb. He is Deputy Director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Carl, good morning, thanks for joining us in our Washington bureau this morning.

CARL GOTTLIEB, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, PROJECT FOR EXCELLENCE IN JOURNALISM: Morning, my pleasure.

KAGAN: Want to go ahead, first, and look at a couple of the specific stories and then you give us your feedback on how they're getting covered here on CNN and then across the media in general. Does that work for you?

GOTTLIEB: It sure does.

KAGAN: OK. Let's start with what's going to take place in about the next hour. As we reported, the funeral will begin for the five Yates children. Those are the kids that were allegedly drowned by their own mother in Houston last week. This story has gotten a lot of coverage, not just as a crime story, but as something considering postpartum depression that touches the lives of a lot of women in America.

GOTTLIEB: Well, I think there's tremendous interest in the story, naturally. It's also quite unusual any time a mother kills children. I think where we could have done, as the media, rather than get into the kind of saturation coverage -- the kind of coverage that tells us we have to have something on every single newscast -- to try and be smart about it and really only update the viewers when we have something to update them with.

Viewers make choices about what they watch. And when they're teased and promoted into believing something is going to be on television and that something doesn't show up, that promised, you know, new fact in a big story like this, they get very disappointed, and they tend to leave. They tend not to watch.

KAGAN: Well, let's apply that to the Yates' case. Today is the funeral, so obviously there's newsworthy today, but after that, the judge has put a gag order on this case. So you would say, using that standard, don't cover it again until maybe something comes up in the courts for Andrea Yates?

GOTTLIEB: Well, or until we find something -- some piece of information that's relevant to the case that might give us some insight into what happened, why she may have done this. Just something new, very frankly. I mean it is about news. I understand that this network and other networks also have to hold on to and gain audience. But at the same time, if you continue to disappoint viewers by telling them you have something and you really don't have anything, viewers are going to continue to turn off in record numbers.

KAGAN: They're a lot smarter than a lot of times we give them credit for.

Another story that's out there: the Chandra Levy story. The story of the missing intern that's happening right in Washington where you are. This has gotten a lot of coverage, and yet why is Chandra Levy different than a lot of missing people in this country?

GOTTLIEB: Well, obviously she has connections to high places. Some might call her a child privileged to some degree. I don't know how many people disappear every day, but I'll bet it's a lot. So there's obviously a human interest of, you know maybe not the greatest kind here, but certainly the human interest. Again, and it's funny, I just heard a promo this morning for one of the stations talking about the latest on their morning news and when I saw that, all it was was a recap of what we actually knew two days ago. Again, giving me cause to wonder whether I need to watch these people.

KAGAN: Give me something new.

Carl, I know you're on the outside looking in at the news business now as you work with the Project for Excellence in Journalism, but you used to be a news director - you used to be a news executive. What are you learning the most about being on the outside looking in that you wish you knew when you were working inside of a newsroom?

GOTTLIEB: Well, I wish I knew some of the things I just mentioned to you. I wish I had some of the research available to me now that says a basic brand of good journalism. Just the basics, nothing fancy tends to be the kind of journalism that people want to watch. I wish I knew about presenting something of value on the air. It's the same, and I hate to put it this way, but the same as selling any product: If your product has value, if there's something there for your potential customer or viewer in this case, they're going to come to you. If you trash it up, decide to go down market, you can certainly get viewers, but they're a lot harder to hold on to.

KAGAN: Good things to think about.

Carl Gottlieb, thanks for dropping by and talking about this with us.

GOTTLIEB: My pleasure.

KAGAN: Appreciate it.

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