Wasted legacy.

From a technique standpoint, the legacy network news operations – ABC, CBS, NBC (and let’s throw in CNN) – are all very good at what they do. They have, over most of a century, become extremely skilled at gathering huge quantities of news audio and video and distilling it into highly watchable and highly listenable news stories.

They do it every single day and they do it on a tight deadline. From the perspective of tradecraft, America’s legacy network newsrooms are the best in the world.

To fully appreciate that tradecraft one must see it. From political conventions across five presidential administrations to two papal conclaves at the Vatican, I have personally watched the legacy networks in action. I have been there as radio and television assignment editors, reporters, videographers, editors and anchors have worked with astonishing proficiency to put out a great looking and great sounding product.

For decades those superior skills – together with the undeniable fact that collectively speaking the legacy networks were the only game in town – garnered huge audiences. Those huge audiences assured superior access to newsmakers and preferred positions at big news events.

Certainly, the confluence of social media and smartphones has acted as a disintermediating force that has disrupted the legacy networks. Where once it took a mountain of expensive infrastructure to get a story from New York or Washington or Rome or London into cars and homes, today anyone on the scene with a smartphone can be a reporter.

But with that said, the advantages gained by the long and massive incumbency of the legacy networks should have been more protective than it has turned out to be. Sure, anyone can now be a reporter. But the vast majority of people lack the skills to report a story compellingly and the long history to report it credibly.

I said should have been more protective. It hasn’t been because the legacy networks – as if acting intentionally – forfeited their credibility. Secure in the belief that they would always enjoy top-tier status, they morphed from doing their best to report the day’s events to doing their best to shape the day’s events. And they did it from a monolithically leftist perspective.

The resulting “news” product has become an orchestrated effort to advance a predetermined liberal narrative. It has also become drippingly condescending and utterly dismissive of the fundamental beliefs and morals of at least half the country.

The audience has responded by abandoning the legacy networks in droves. Joe Rogan’s podcast alone reaches nearly as many consumers as the legacy networks combined.

Given that today we have countless news reporting sources and given that it’s hard to know the respective agendas of those sources, it would be nice if we could look to the legacy guys as a reliable source.

But rather than properly leveraging their incumbency, they have instead consciously substituted political activism in place of traditional journalism and in so doing, become embarrassingly irrelevant.

It’s a terrible waste of skill, talent and expertise. And it’s a terrible disservice to the republic.