{"id":7142,"date":"2015-02-09T17:56:11","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T17:56:11","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2015-02-09T17:56:11","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T17:56:11","slug":"james_l_brooks_saw_the_future_of_news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2015\/02\/09\/james_l_brooks_saw_the_future_of_news\/","title":{"rendered":"James L. Brooks Saw the Future of News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a><\/p>\n

RUSH: Hi. How are you? On the cutting edge, Rush Limbaugh, executing assigned host duties flawlessly, zero mistakes.<\/p>\n

How many of you have seen the movie Broadcast News? Snerdley is raising his hand. All right, Mr. Snerdley, do you remember anything about that movie other than Holly Hunter? Do you remember who starred in that movie? (interruption) It was Albert Brooks. If I\u2019ve got the right movie. It was a fantastic James Brooks movie. It\u2019s from 1987, Broadcast News<\/a>. You might, by the way, if you haven\u2019t seen it, you might want to Netflix it or rent it, whatever, download it.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what happens. A handsome young TV sports anchor, ambitious but not all that bright, pretty typical of people in the news, gets a promotion. He\u2019s hired to be a national news reporter who, on one of his first assignments, commits what in the past has been an unforgivable ethical breach. Now, keep in mind this is 1987. I\u2019m gonna give you spoiler alert here. Still watch it even though I\u2019m gonna give something away here. This enterprising young local TV sports anchor, ambitious but not all that bright, hired to be a national news reporter, his first assignment commits an unforgivable ethical breach.<\/p>\n

He interviews a young woman about her heart-wrenching experience with date rape. Now, don\u2019t get the wrong idea. Date rape was not considered real news when this movie was made. It\u2019s not about that, but I\u2019m just giving you the details here. In the segment — this is the news — in the segment where this enterprising young reporter with his first big national news assignment, in this segment he commits a journalistic no-no. The reporter is shown crying, tearing up as the woman tells her story.<\/line><\/p>\n

Now, what that does is insert him in the story. I\u2019m mentioning this because Brian Williams said he had to take himself off the news because he has become the news, and I\u2019m here to tell you that that\u2019s a bogus reason to get off the — it\u2019s silly anymore. These people have been making the news about them ever since this movie. But in 1987, it was an ethical breach to make yourself part of the story. It was an ethical breach to have any emotional reaction at all to what you were seeing or to what somebody was telling you. The reporter is shown tearing up. That inserts him in the story. But the ethical breach was not just that. The ethical breach is discovered after the footage airs, because the reporter in the real interview had not cried.<\/p>\n

The enterprising new reporter had not teared up. He told the cameraman to roll separate footage to capture him in the act of making himself cry, and they edit that footage in with the footage of the original interview. So he not only inserted himself in the story, he faked his initial reaction to dramatize the moment. Remember, this is an ambitious guy. He\u2019s trying to stand out. He\u2019s trying to get ahead fast. He\u2019s really ambitious. It\u2019s his first big assignment, he\u2019s got this story, woman telling the story about date rape, all during the original interview he didn\u2019t crack a smile, he didn\u2019t crack a frown, he didn\u2019t cry, but afterwards he cried for the camera, in private, and they inserted that in the story.<\/p>\n

And it made for great TV news for the viewers in this movie. In the movie the viewers ate it up, my God, the reporter was touched, he was crying. It was all made up, it was BS. He cried after the fact. But in the movie, you love the anchor. He sold his narrative. It may have been a true story, but facts were not allowed to speak for themselves. That\u2019s the point. The facts were not allowed. They had to be embellished. The woman telling her tale of date rape had to be embellished by a reporter inserting himself in the story crying. But he really hadn\u2019t. That was inserted later. And what the hell, who cares if it was true anyway. It was good TV. It was compelling television.<\/p>\n