If the state of the nightly news on TV is a measure of this country’s democracy, then the state of the union needs more than new faces in the anchor chair. Beyond the prime time shout fests on cable news and newscasts larded with reports on “health and lifestyle” — TV news is undergoing its own version of extreme makeover. And recently, that’s lead to fabricated stories and new levels of bias and imbalance. For twenty years Robert MacNeil delivered the news from his chair at public TV’s MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour. When he retired ten years ago, he said then that journalism was on a downwards slide…and he still doesn’t see that changing. We take stock of TV news with Robert MacNeil .
Guests:
Robert MacNeil, former co-anchor of PBS’s “The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour” and author of “Looking for My Country,” “The Story of English,” and most recently, “Do You Speak American.”