Arts Entertainment

The Media

`if It Bleeds, It Leads'

In a new book, U-M grad Matthew Kerbel
critiques television news.

BILL CARROLL

Special to the Jewish News

A

newspaper cartoon recently depicted an
announcement of a reduction in Detroit's
crime rate. While the headline on a televi-
sion screen reads, "Violent Crime Rate
Drops," a TV news director reacts with utter dismay,
moaning, "Drat! More bad news" — that is, less bad
news means less news. A sticker on the TV studio's
wall tells it all: "If It Bleeds, It Leads."
And that's part of the name of a new book, /f It

Bleeds, It Leads: An Anatomy of Television News
(Westview Press; $25), by Matthew R. Kerbel, a for-
mer TV news writer and now associate professor of
political science at Villanova University in

Bill Carroll is a West Bloomfield-based freelance writer.

location near the psychiatric center," recalled Kerbel
Pennsylvania. Bleeding means the story is about some
during a recent visit to Detroit. "I found the studio
type of crime, often a murder or a terrible automobile
by driving up a dirt road until the hair on my neck
accident; leading means it's the first story on the daily
stood up."
news report.
It is "rare for a PBS station to have its own news
The 144-page book gives readers a close look at
programming,"
according to Kerbel. But WNET
TV news shows, taking them minute by minute
had
"a
low-budget
news operation with a rest room-
through three hours of "typical" syndicated, local
sized
studio,"
where
he wrote news copy about such
and network information programming during a
big stories as the 1981 release of the Iran hostages
week in February 1997, to analyze what passes as
and the 1980 assassination of Beatle John Lennon.
news.
Kerbel finally landed what would have been a
The TV channels covered are WXYZ-TV-Channel
well-paying
news writing job at CNN in Atlanta,
7, Detroit, where, viewers are told, "Seven Stands for
but
by
that
time
he had "accumulated enough inci-
News"; KNXV-TV "News Fifteen," Phoenix; KABC-
dents"
to
sour
him
on TV
TV "Air Seven," Los Angeles; and KYW-TV,
"I
had
seen
enough
of television from the inside
NBC/ 10, Philadelphia, "Your Station for the New
to
realize
that
I
was
better
suited to watching it from
Millennium." They represent large markets in differ-
afar,"
he
intoned.
ent time zones.
He turned down the job, finished his doctoral
Kerbel, 41, who is Jewish, holds a doctorate in
work and, for the past 10 years, has been writing
political science from the
and teaching. "The teaching job is just a better fit
University of Michigan,
The book gives
for me," he said. "Besides,, the best perspective of
specializing in mass media
readers a close
TV
news is watching it . from an informed distance."
and politics. Born in New
look at TV news
While
he admits he didn't spend a lot of time
York, he is a product of the
shows, taking
working
in
TV news, Kerbel said the impetus for If
school
system
there.
At
U-
them minute by
It Bleeds, It Leads comes from both the newsroom
M, he met his wife,
minute through
and the classroom — "from seeing my students' eyes
three hours of.syn- Adrienne, a native of Oak
open a little when we consider different ways to look
dicatech local and Park, who is now a com-
network program- puter scientist. They have a at the news."
Kerbel asserts the book is not meant to be a
ming during a
daughter, Gabrielle.
"media-bashing"
instrument. It's "not a real
"typical" week.
Adrienne's mother, Mary
.attack
on
TV,
but
more entertaining than any-
Adler, lives in West
thing
else,"
he
said.
"I wrote it to help the read-
Bloomfield.
ers/TV
viewers
form
a _s more intelligent relation-
the
news
about
Kerbel has been writing
ship with what they see on TV and get a better
media — he's produced three other books —
understanding of it.
ever since he stopped writing for the news
"And so. far, it seems to be working. People who
media, claiming familiarity with both small
have
read the book tell me they can't watch TV the
and large media markets.
same
way again after learning some of the tricks of
He reported radio news on WINR-AM in
the
trade."
Binghamton, N.Y., a small town "with too
few cars to form a rush hour." He worked as
uch of the three hours of transcripts
an unpaid production associate, then a paid
from the four TV channels in the
news writer for WNET, a public broadcast
book reflect routine news coverage of
TV channel in New York City "with an audi-
events, and Kerbel offers only mild
ence so tiny that it showed up in the ratings
criticism
of
the
news-reporting efforts, which seem
as an asterisk, too small to measure."
to
be
in
line
with
the methods needed to cover
"When the FCC decided radio stations
crime
stories.
couldn't leave their transmitters unattended,
An example of a typical WXYZ-TV story was a
the Binghamto i station closed its in-town
shotgun slaying of two people in an Oak Park
studio and moved everyone to the transmit-
IF IT BLEEDS on page 84
ter shack on an isolated, wind-swept, hilltop

MIC

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Television
hew R. Kerbel