This documentary by Frontline was really interesting. I agree that there is a huge blur when it comes to differentiating hard news from soft news. Many people watch shows that are put forward as hard news, but they aren't. The representative for one of the stations said he believes news has broadened its coverage, not lowered its standards. In a sense this is true because more topics are covered. However, because this news is being presented as traditional news and is being put in traditional news outlets it appears standards have lowered.
When you consider whether news and television iare being used as a public service it appears that they are not. Most of the time we are listening to reporters on the TV say their opinions or the opinions of the corporations that back them. This news is informational but it biases or backs already present biases that the viewers have. Part of the documentary said that stations just need a passionate audience, to get a passionate audience you have to fire them up with something, and that is opinions. I agree that it is okay for that type of reporting to have a role, but the lines should be clear. A person watching should be able to see that opinion based journalism is slightly out of the norm. I don't think it should dominate as it currently does.
Only 33% of online bloggers, according to the documentary, want anything to do with journalism. Yet how is it that people can see online bloggers as actual reporters? It is because of the traditional media outlets. The reporting done by traditional media outlets has enabled this. They gradually covered lighter topics and now many stories that have no newsworthiness can be covered by anyone and presented as news.
There was a lot of other points in the video. However, I agree that news should be a public service. This doesn't mean news needs to be limited, it just means standards are kept at a certain level and those who want to produce news solely for profit would be unable to. News and entertainment are great, but as we see from this documentary, they should not be evolving into the same thing.