By Cal Thomas, Los Angeles Times Syndicate

July 1996 –Ted Turner thinks you’re dumb. The CEO of CNN and mogul of other communications empires said in a recent speech: “The United States has got some of the dumbest people in the world. I want you to know that. We know that. It’s a disgrace. I mean there are times when I have been so discouraged about my own country.”

What could have gotten into Turner that he would say such things about those who consume his televised products? Turner spokesman Steve Hayworth offered some insight. Hayworth said his boss’ remarks should not be taken out of their environmental context: “His point was that when you try to do programming to address the problems, nobody watches.”

Three days after Turner’s remarks, a new survey was released that shows a considerable drop in the public’s view of the credibility of network anchors as well as a decline in viewership of the main evening network news programs. The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that the believability of ABC’s Peter Jennings and CBS’ Dan Rather slipped seven percentage points from February 1993. For NBC’s Tom Brokaw, the decline in believability was three percentage points.

“Television news is in trouble with the American public,” concludes the report. “Fewer people are watching these days.” Asked why, a plurality (31%) of those over 50 said they were “critical of coverage.” After years of complaining about liberally slanted and distorted news coverage only to have the networks deny such bias, the people are voting the only way they know how. They are tuning out and turning off.

Other people, who use computers to access information on-line, aren’t tuning in. Apparently they prefer to get their news directly and not through the filtration system of network news departments.

Americans aren’t dumb, no matter what Ted Turner says. They are smart enough to recognize propaganda when they see it. Six years ago, Terry Ryan, senior producer for CNN’s Network Earth series, said, “A ‘balanced’ report, in some cases, may no longer be the most effective or even the most informative. Indeed, it can be debilitating. Can we afford to wait for our audience to come to its conclusions? I think not.” The reaction of smart people to such an attitude is not to watch the program.

Barbara Pyle, Turner Broadcasting vice president for environmental policy and an environmental editor at CNN, said in 1990 that she “met a lot of resistance and was considered to be a real fringe lunatic for many, many years.” But she continued, undaunted. “I feel,” she said, “that I’m here on this planet to work in television, to be the little subversive person in television. I’ve chosen television as my form of activism.”

Last weekend, Newsweek’s Washington bureau chief Evan Thomas made a startling statement (startling not for what he said but for what he admitted). About Newt Gingrich’s recent charge that the media is biased, Thomas said, “This is true. There is liberal bias. It’s demonstrable. You look at some statistics. About 85% of the reporters who cover the White House vote Democratic. They have for a long time, particularly at the networks, at the lower levels, among the editor’s and so-called infrastructure, there is a liberal bias. There is a liberal bias at Newsweek, the magazine I work for.”

Incredibly, despite a continued slide in ratings and trust, virtually nothing changes. The networks and print publications blame cable for taking away their customers. Ted Turner blames the public for being too dumb to believe in his one-sided environmental preachings. The big networks announce that their new cable operations will feature the same anchors and commentators, who are already seen and not believed by huge numbers of former viewers.

No other company functions like the media. If you own a fast food chain and the customers begin drifting away, you quickly find out what has turned them off and what will bring them back. Not with the big media. They would rather go out of business than offer fair, accurate and balanced reporting and viewpoints.

Who’s dumb and who is dumber?