• by Jack Feuer , January 16, 2008

I read on Yahoo that the plague is making a comeback. Not a moment too soon, if you ask me. And I have the article to prove it.

A colleague at UCLA sent me a piece by former NBC newsman John Hockenberry that appears in the current issue of MIT's Technology Review. I read it. And wept.

Look, I liked John Hockenberry when he was on the air. He's certainly an improvement over horror shows like Chris Matthews, dipsticks like Lou Dobbs, or dimwits like Katie Couric. But when it comes to insight into the digital life, Johnny has apparently come lately -- very lately -- to the party. He reveals to us, for example, that communications technology has changed the way we look at the world. And that viewers aren't passive anymore.

Ohmigod.

But wait, there's more. Hockenberry, now at the MIT Media Lab, proclaims: "It is still a mystery to me why television news remains so dissatisfying, so superficial, and so irrelevant." Not only that, but he regrets "how television news had lost its most basic journalistic instincts in its search for the audience-driven sweet spot."

Well, stick my head in a socket and call me Curly. What a revelation.

What is it with content makers that they remain so clueless about the world they live in? Aren't these the chroniclers, the storytellers we rely on to speak truth to power and protect us from tyranny? To regale us with entertaining and sly morality tales, to comfort us with universal stories of courage and love? To remind us of our connection to all the other talking monkeys on this small, blue planet?

To be fair, Hockenberry writes about his experiences on Dateline NBC, including his frustration with network nitwits he dealt with and their inability to perceive that the Internet efforts he was involved in were worthwhile. He's not a digital illiterate. And he's a good writer. I especially like the part where he talks about how NBC's process, compelled by its corporate parent to include Six Sigma and other big-business bullshit, was designed to produce drones, not journalists. When Hockenberry jokes that "GE was a multinational corporate front for Maoism," I thought that was funny stuff.

But really, do we need another fired mainstream journalist whining about how his former employers are concrete blockheads who don't appreciate his genius? This is a blitz-paced, multiplatform world. Nobody has the time or the patience for a 6,000 word story. It's a little something to ponder for the editors over at MIT Technology Review.

Please, we need help navigating through this strange new digital life. But journalists and storytellers are letting us down. Only media agencies are actively looking for answers. Yes, my cuddly little poptarts, you are the thin bottom line that separates civilization from digital savagery. You are all we have to guide us safely to tomorrow.

At least until the plague hits.