I think there could be a market for a newscast strongly motivated by critical thinking and committed to a long-term attempt to educate and inform by developing overarching themes and using the web to support viewer self-informing. This would obviously involve suggesting to viewers that whatever is being shown on the air in many cases simply scratches the surface. It would also involve a significant de-emphasis of the sorts of stuff that is know to attract superficial viewing (which, let’s face it, drives ratings).

And it would involve changes in editorial approach where the newscast would sometimes “take sides” instead of giving a token display of both sides of the story and hiding behind the notion that “we let our viewers decide.” This latter idea (we let viewers decide) is in fact solid, but in practice in can often be used as a cop-out and a shield. For example, how much airtime do you give to “both sides” on a story about whether chinese foot pads can remove body toxicity and improve your health?