Wanted: Serious News Channel

Qualifications:
Must:

  • Feature regular, extended (15 minutes or greater) one-on-one discussions of policy decisions and implications, from all sides of an issue.  That’s ALL sides, which is at times a number greater than two.
  • Be based somewhere that still has a connection to reality–i.e. not on either coast of the U.S.  Chicago, perhaps, although basing the network in small-town Iowa (away from Omaha, Des Moines, Ames, or Iowa City) would probably be best.
  • Regard with healthy skepticism ALL conventional wisdoms from whatever direction.  Reserve extra skepticism for people who advocate any change in the status quo–like advocates of socialized health care, anybody on ANY side of the abortion debate, or human-caused climate change.  Give the highest level of skepticism for wacko conspiracy theorists like UFO people, the 9/11 Truthers, or any organization funded by George Soros.
  • Recognize and report on good news as well as bad.
  • Enforce a scrupulously neutral stance by all on-air personalities, and refrain from engaging in editorials disguised as news stories.
  • Hire a staff that “looks like America” ideologically.

Must Not:

  • Depend on other news outlets (including and especially the New York Times) to determine what is “newsworthy.”
  • Cover celebrity train-wreck stories.  If you want that crap, go watch E! or Entertainment Tonight.  Or MTV, for that matter, but don’t pretend that what sports figures and entertainment celebrities do is in any way vitally important to anyone.
  • Carry ANY shouting-head argument shows like Hannity & Combes, or allow any host or guest to raise their voice or depart from civil discourse (assuming anyone remembers how to engage in civil discourse in the first place).
  • Drive news using polls or telephone call-in segments to determine newsworthyness, but depend on reporters in the field and on the street to determine what people consider newsworthy.
  • Hire any person who has served in an important capacity in any political party or Presidential campaign or administration.

That would be a good start.