News from Nowhere

I am a big fan of Edward J. Epstein’s work, News from Nowhere being chief among them. No media-literacy reading list could be complete without at least a couple of his books.

Those who have read Trust Me, I’m Lying will know that Ryan Holiday is a walking encyclopedia on the economics of journalism and blogging. If The Brass Check informed the structural premise of Holiday’s book, then Epstein’s works were the blueprint for his analysis, essentially.

News from Nowhere originally began as a thesis Epstein was writing at Harvard. He knew he had something, and it became this essential text on network news. First you had tabloid papers sold on the streets. Then came more sensible, subscription-based publications like the New York Times. And then came television news coverage. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history, but it all happened very fast. And today with social media and streaming, that history is still very much in play. Viewers are still caught in a cycle where we are not informed by the media, but encouraged to “stay tuned.” Epstein’s analysis goes into the creation of news programs, and the institutional factors that influence such processes. News divisions rely on ad revenue, but all that money ends up in the hands of the parent companies behind them. To bring in such revenue, stories need to appeal to audiences like a TV drama. Tons of visuals, conflict, heroes and villains.

News programs, simply put, create a distorted view of the news, rather than any accurate representation. And this is a huge concern, because for the longest time, people relied on news programs as their primary source. Same now with online news.

Epstein’s analysis is nothing if not thorough. He observed NBC News daily from 1968 to 1969, as well as months of observations and interviews with the staff at ABC and CBS. Reporters, editors, technicians, everyone and anyone involved. News from Nowhere was the result, a masterful balance of journalism and scholarship.

And here’s the thing: Epstein is not calling for people to boycott television. It’s really quite the opposite. I would interpret News from Nowhere as a call for people to educate themselves on the structure and dynamics of television news as an industry, get their news from a variety of mediums, and then tune in.

Really, I recommend the entire compendium of Epstein’s work, from this, to his books about the economics of Hollywood and the film industry. News from Nowhere is essential reading on how corporate policy and internal budgeting shape what goes into televised news.