ABSTRACT
ABC News advertises its late night bulletins by saying that it will report from parts of the world where given the time-difference between the United States and Europe it's already tomorrow. Given television's hectic, peremptory present, the emphasis in its news reporting has shifted from the significance of events to their currency. The medium has been successful in imposing its own values on the news that even reporters who have nothing to show us flinch from the indignity of merely telling their stories and insist on being seen posed in the places from which they're reporting. It tempts television to appraise all events touristically, to turn the news story into a picture postcard. Action news specializes in showing the reporter at work stalking his story, rather than telling us what that story is. More than reading the news, lending it that credibility which is less a product of journalistic skill than of silver-haired, mild-toned, homey image.
