If sensational reporting and fluff pieces are now the standard of news, then "Dateline NBC" fits right in. This news magazine has become the dominant piece of the NBC News operation, more talked about than its flagship, "NBC Nightly News," and starting this summer, airing nearly as often: four times a week.
"Dateline" epitomizes what is wrong with this new era of network news. Important and vital stories are passed over for more interesting but less essential information.
While the name would imply timely reporting, the topics covered on "Dateline" are not usually the news of the day covered in depth, but rather carefully selected pieces, designed to captivate the viewer and keep him entertained throughout the broadcast.
This mission of "Dateline" just might be what makes it such a horror to watch. In an overzealous drive to broadcast news as entertainment, viewers receive neither. The reports are not worthy of the label "news," but also aren't entertaining. As hard as anchor Stone Phillips tries to marry the two subjects, the result seems as artificial as his name.
Take a recent segment on dog medication being used by human patients or James Bond-like spy gadgets hitting stores across the country. While both had harder analysis integrated with them, drug testing and privacy rights respectively, the topics appeared to be nothing more than poor excuses to capitalize on what would otherwise be relegated to the status of a news tidbit.
When the magazine does stumble upon a topic worthy of investigative journalism, the bells and whistles that accompany its lavish style and set undermine its credibility. In a report last week on "The Travelers," an organized con artist group, "Dateline" once again put the quality of its own journalism into question. Entering into a commercial, Phillips warned viewers that "you, too, could be one of their victims."
This scare tactic to keep audiences glued is not rare on "Dateline". Phillips and co-anchor Jane Pauley routinely capture viewers by suggesting the personal involvement of the watcher. The report on spy devices opened with the warning that you, yes you, could be taped on secret cameras at work, in the car or even at home.
Natural disaster pieces comment on the possibility of each and every viewer being attacked by the ferocious (and rare) tornadoes, hurricanes or tidal waves. These warnings move "Dateline" from a news show in which facts are presented for self-digestion by intelligent viewers to a tabloid which sees its audience as unfit to make logical judgments on its own.
This patronization continues with "Dateline's" various regular segments like its amazingly childish "Picture of the Week."
In its weekly "Timeline" teaser, viewers are asked to identify the year certain events occurred. However, Pauley does not describe major news events for the segment but rather which movie was number one at the box office or which album went platinum. This seems more fitting for "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" than the premier news magazine of a major news operation.
Television news magazines are supposed to be electronic equivalents of their print cousins, such as Time or US News and World Report. But "Dateline" seems more like a TV version of People or Family Circle, with movie star interviews and reports on how to deal with "toddler back-talk."
"Dateline" tries incessantly to proclaim its quality and professionalism by nightly showcasing its various journalism awards, but the attempts seem shallow and insecure, as if even "Dateline" itself doesn't believe in its news status.
"60 Minutes" doesn't announce its accolades every week, just like newspapers don't report daily on the Pulitzers they've won. The fact that "Dateline" feels the need to act differently is one more aspect that separates it from real news alternatives.
Even its trumpeted list of well known contributors seems solely designed to influence perception of the show. Though reports are rare to non-existent from Tom Brokaw, Maria Shriver and Katie Couric, their names are announced each broadcast right along with Pauley and Phillips. This appears to be just one more technique to mix Brokaw's credibility with Shriver's celebrity.
"Dateline NBC" could be entertaining if it didn't try to be so serious, or informational if it didn't try to be so captivating. However, since the news magazine tries to be both, failure is all that results. News isn't always interesting, and entertainment isn't always newsworthy. And all the hype that Stone Phillips can muster can't bring the two together, even in "studio 3B in Rockefeller Center."
