Carol Marin and the Pursuit of Ethics


September 20, 2002


BROOKE GLADSTONE: TV broadcaster Carol Marin is known for her work on 60 Minutes II and for her tenure as one of Chicago's most prominent newscasters, but she gained attention with two decisions. One was to quit a local newscast which hired Jerry Springer as a commentator. The second was mounting a 10 p.m. newscast that tried to buck the trend of sensational local news. It didn't work, or at least didn't get good ratings which means the same thing in the world of network television. Last week Marine hosted a PBS special called Endgame: Ethics and Values in America, and we wanted to ask her about some of her own experiences with professional ethics. Welcome to the show.

CAROL MARIN: Thank you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So when you mounted the WBBM Newscast, did you feel that you were behaving more ethically than the "if-it-bleeds, it-leads" newscasts?

CAROL MARIN: No. The truth is that I don't think tabloid news is necessarily unethical. It really sort of is what it is; it bleeds, it leads, you-know-it-when-you-see-it, and it's a choice that broadcasters make about how they want to, to format their newscasts. I didn't think that what we did at BBM was necessarily more ethical; it was more in keeping with my view of what news is. And I'm, I'm a big believer in hard news; no frills; straightforward investigative journalism. There's no question about that. In local news, one of the big "plagues" is that it's become generic. It's become dumbed-down. It's become so homogenized that every newscast has to end with a water-skiing squirrel. Those are not unethical choices. I think they're bad choices; but I see a distinction.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Why are they bad?

CAROL MARIN:For me they're bad because-- they assume that there's a formula, and I don't think there always is a formula. What we see in audiences and, and the way -- as your introduce suggested -- some people judge success is by the ratings -- is that more and more people aren't watching local news -- and they're not watching network news. So the competition between the number one, two and three local stations in a market is still from dwindling pieces of the pie where before at 10 o'clock or at 11 o'clock at night 60 to 70 percent of the audience available was watching local news. Now some markets, big markets, are lucky if 20 - 25 percent are watching local news. People are simply clicking it off because it isn't relevant to them; it isn't interesting; because they feel like they see the same thing wherever they go - it's wallpaper.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Do you think that your local news experiment advanced or set back the cause of getting better quality newscasts anywhere else?

CAROL MARIN:You know I remain to this moment-- proud that we tried and proud of what we did, and-- I don't know if it advanced or set it back; but it certainly generated some discussion, and so-- from my narrow vantage point of having been there and done that with great people, for us-- though we wished it had continued, it was-- it was a successful venture.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:What do you think of the New York Times take on it? It said in reference to your newscast: "It could be taken as a re-affirmation that a serious format cannot succeed; that people need to be drawn in through celebrity gossip and miracle diets introduced by bubbly anchormen and anchorwomen."

CAROL MARIN: I don't believe that. You know it, it comes--I mean I love the New York Times as a newspaper, but its disdain for television sometimes-- disturbs me. You know I think that there is a market out there for it, but like everything else it has to develop, and, and, and viewers have to believe that something will last longer than a season --than a 13 week renewable. The things that really endure are the things that everyone thought was going to fail for the first 5 years they were on the air until they picked up some loyal following, and that includes 60 Minutes.

BROOKE GLADSTONE:That's certainly been the complaint in entertainment TV -- that they just don't let shows develop an audience. They don't let new magazines develop an audience. I think it took Sports Illustrated more than a decade to actually break even. But the need for short term reward makes those long term successes that require developing an audience impossible!

CAROL MARIN: But if we see examples where patience actually pays off -- I mean it certainly did for CBS with 60 Minutes; it, it's certainly done so in other venues. If we can see again and again that taking some time and investing some time delivers a profit -- maybe not today and tomorrow but down the road and in a big way --why isn't that something to emulate, I ask myself and you.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS] All right. Carol Marin, thank you very much.

CAROL MARIN: You're welcome, Brooke.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Last week, journalist Carol Marin hosted a PBS Special called Endgame: Ethics and Values in America. [MUSIC TAG]