The guy who cheapened television news to death is himself dead at 78

[BurtWorm]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704820904575055690695013402.html




Frank Magid: 1931-2010

He Turned TV News Into Entertainment
By STEPHEN MILLER

One of television's original "news doctors," Frank Magid helped re-imagine television news as a form of entertainment. Mr. Magid, who died Friday at age 78, was a market researcher who started his career helping banks and breweries figure out how to better-serve their customers.

During the 1970s, Mr. Magid's Marion, Iowa-based consultancy was hired by hundreds of stations that subsequently introduced flashy, fast-paced local news read from teleprompters by coifed anchor teams who bantered with their fellow broadcasters. The era of the starchy solo white male newsreader with a paper script came to an abrupt end.

Critics called the revamped product "happy talk." But for station managers across the U.S., "news you can use" became a byword for increased audiences and advertising revenue. Newscasts could become profit centers rivaling even prime-time programming.

Mr. Magid "saw that the mass American public was not enamored with the concept of news," said Craig Allen, an Arizona State University journalism professor. "He developed the research regimen and established things like consumer reporting, health and other segments that were never a part of the national news."


Frank N. Magid Associates was the largest of a handful of firms that did survey and focus-group research for local stations in the 1970s. The company's approach ignited controversy among old-school journalists, who resented being directed by consultants with a computer printout in one hand and a ratings list in the other. Walter Cronkite, speaking at a 1976 CBS-TV affiliates conference, said, "Any real newsman knows that sort of stuff is balderdash. It's cosmetics, pretty packaging—not substance."

Mr. Magid claimed he was only giving the people what they wanted. Thanks to his work, he told The Wall Street Journal in 1976, broadcasts "now incorporate consumerism, local politics, investigative reporting and features, written and edited more concisely and delivered more effectively."

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[ck4829]

1. Full story at 11

[rfranklin]

2. Fox News is his grandchild...

giving people what they want.

[virgogal]

13. You actually think Fox News is different from the others? Not in this case.

Most are entertainment,not news-----even the local "newscasts" are guilty.

Looks like you've been watching FNC too much.

[emilyg]

16. They all do.

[TwilightGardener]

3. A legacy of shallow fluff, and a dumbed-down America.

[Gold Metal Flake]

4. I'll bet he lived a comfortable life.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. Thanks for nothin'

[Jackpine Radical]

6. A corporate tool who created a corporate tool.

One of the architects of America's destruction.

[FourScore]

7. Join us tonight for our 2-hour segment on just how Magid made it happen....eom

[louis-t]

8. I remember the last few real news programs mocking

the 'happy news' programs. The commercial shot through a fish-eye lens of happycasters laughing hysterically.

[virgogal]

9. Thus the birth of the oh-so-good-looking anchor person who

was never a true journalist.

Sickening.

[UTUSN]

10. Oh. I thought Bahbwah WAHwah was who had accomplished the cheapening of t.v. news!1 n/t

[arcadian]

11. Rest in Pieces ya fuckin schmuck.

[tom_paine]

12. One can only hope there is a very horrific section of hell roped off for such people

This man has done more damage to our nation than most.

[AwakeAtLast]

14. Walter Cronkite is dealing with him now

I wouldn't want to be Mr. Magid right about now.

;)

[yowzayowzayowza]

15. "We got the bubbleheaded bleach-blonde, comes on at 5

She can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye
It's interesting when people die, give us dirty laundry"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KQCqBDCbIA