Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Flightless Bird: News

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

In this week’s Flightless Bird, David sets out to understand American Network News, and the country’s obsession with rolling 24/7 news coverage. Why does the Fox News Channel averaged more total viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined and how is American TV news faring in the wake of Twitter and TikTok? David talks to Stacy Scholder, a professor at the University of Southern California who teaches TV journalism. What is she teaching the next generation of TV journalists and what was it like covering OJ Simpson’s escape on the LA freeway? He also meets Victor Vlam, a 38-year-old man in the Netherlands who has the biggest collection of news theme songs on the planet. Why does he have 876 hours, 2 minutes and 52 seconds of news music? Victor explains the importance of news theme music and what it says about the news you’re about to hear. What’s the best news theme song and the worst? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm David Farrier, a New Zealander accidentally marooned in America, and I want to figure out what makes this country tick. Now it should come as no surprise to you by now that New Zealand is a small place. With that in mind, it should also come as no surprise that we only have two main news stations. For years, their names weren't very creative. One was on Channel 1, and its news show was called One News. The other main news show was on Channel 3, and show was called One News. The other main news show was on Channel 3

and that was called Three News. This is Three News with Hilary Barry and Mike McRoberts. So imagine my shock and awe when I came to America and discovered you didn't have just two TV news programs, you had hundreds and hundreds of them. I suppose it makes sense because there's so much news going on in America all the time. What did you think about the ride? It was great. And apparently I've never been on live television before. I don't watch the news.

Look, I'm not surprised. There's simply too much news to watch. From local news to national networks, hour-long bulletins to 24-hour cable news, wherever you turn, news, news, news. There's so much news going on, sometimes journalists and presenters can't wait for a private moment and literally start masturbating mid-interview. What the hell were you thinking? Well, obviously, I wasn't thinking very well or very much. Well, obviously, I wasn't thinking very well or very much.

News is a vital part of American democracy, a way for communities to be informed and for the country to try and reckon with events far beyond our comprehension. This just in, you were looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center. And we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers. Sometimes news will shape the future politics of an entire country, which affects the entire world. Sometimes it will interrupt the NBA finals. Three seconds. Violation call. This is a Channel 5 News special report.

There is a rather amazing story developing in Los Angeles this hour where California Highway Patrol is in pursuit of a white Ford Bronco, a car that was reported to be one that might contain OJ Simpson and a friend. their favorite TV news network. And for a lot of Americans, that ends up being the Fox News channel, which often averages more total viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined. But how is good old-fashioned American TV news faring in the wake of Twitter and TikTok? Thanks to their phones, many Americans come armed with 4K cameras they can instantly live stream to Instagram, so-called citizen journalists at the ready. So grab that remote, sit back, and get ready for some dramatic non-fiction content, because this is the news episode. I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America. I'm a flightless bird touchdown in America. So for the sake of clarity, I've chosen to focus this one on TV news. Great. So we're not doing radio.

We're not doing newspapers. Just big American TV news. Now, quickly, that masturbating thing in the intro. Yes, which I had no idea about. I live under a rock. That's one of my most favorite things. So, yeah, it was a journalist. He worked for the New Yorker.

He'd appear on news broadcasts as a commentator. Okay. But it was a Zoom call with fellow staff. And he thought his video screen was switched off while this meeting was going on and he just starts wanking. But the camera wasn't off and so he's just there in the meeting masturbating. His dick is out. In front of his colleagues. Yeah, he's going for it. Yeah, and so he ended up being fired and the quote he gave at the time, he just said, I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on Zoom could see

me. I would argue that you shouldn't be masturbating when you're on Zoom at all. Yeah, I'm curious. Is it like he was so bored that he was like, oh my God, this is another two hours and I'm feeling it. I think that's pretty much the case. Zooms can go on for so long. People are talking. You're just like, ah, I've had enough of it. I just found that very infinitely amusing.

I feel kind of like, should he have gone on a fire? If you're with colleagues. It wasn't on purpose. I don't think you should be masturbating while you're talking to a colleague. Like if I'm organizing the show and I call Rob on a Zoom and my video is off, I don't think while I'm talking about Flight of the Spirit, I should be masturbating while I talk to Rob. I think that's bad.

We wouldn't fire you if you did that. Really? No. I mean, I think we'd be like, David, honestly, cut it out. Like, that was weird. Yeah, it's a slap on the wrist. That puts Rob in a bad position. Well, unless...

I think it depends on if he was, like, jerking off to someone on the Zoom or it was clearly... That's different. If I was just staring at your face extra intentlyently and you're like, why have you put your video off, David? Or you were doing it, you were getting off on being watched. That's what I'm saying. That's the dynamic.

If it was on purpose, then yes, I think you should be fired. But if you were just kind of like, I'm putting this Zoom on the side while I do other shit. I do that. I mean, I've never masturbated while on Zoom. The quote is, I do that. I mean, I've never masturbated while on Zoom. The quote is, I do that. Sort of like take away from that. But I'm like, you know, I'll put the mute and then the

camera and then I'll make my tea. Yeah, making tea is so different. Yeah, making tea is different to masturbating, I think, in my book. But anyway, the news. That was just a crazy thing that happened that I found very amusing. I'm curious what your relationship was growing up with news in the United States and whether you took any notice of it.

Because in New Zealand, I worked in a newsroom for 10 years. So I'm kind of obsessed. Oh, wow. Was it like the show The Newsroom? I love that show. It was like if Newsroom was much more lo-fi and in a tiny newsroom that didn't really have any resources. And people's speeches were much less grand. I got out of journalism school and I got a job running the autocue machine

initially. So I would turn the knob while the newsreaders read the autocue. We call that teleprompter here. Oh, America. You're like, autocue, what? So yeah, I just sit after my classes were done my last year of university and do that. And then I got a job on the news desk and I'll deploy news crews and cameras to different news stories. Wow. And that was really exciting.

And then I got a job on a late night news show in New Zealand called Nightline doing sort of entertainment reporting and covering like wacky cats up the tree type stories. And then I ended up swinging back to more documentary-ish stuff. So my point is I love the news, but it was very New Zealand focused. I see. I grew up with the news on 24-7.

My parents just have it on. Also, it's just background noise. Always. Yeah. Always on. It's CNN or MSNBC for the most part. It was always part of my life. When I'm home, I learn more about what's going on in those four days that I'm home than I do throughout the whole year. It's like catching up on the world. It is. It is. And my parents are so up to date on all

of that stuff. Whenever I'm with my parents, we revert in New Zealand to watching the six o'clock news. Like really old school, but we'll have dinner, we'll sit down at the table and in the healthy way, not talk to each other, but just watch the news as we eat our dinner. Okay, when you go home and you're with your family, how much, okay, let's say you're there for 24 hours. How many hours are you talking to your family? We start off, we hit the ground running.

It's great. We're catching up. Okay. We're loving it. The conversation's up. Okay. We're loving it. The conversation's wonderful. Okay. Then that runs out 20 minutes in. We're done.

20 minutes, it's over. And then, okay, what do I do now? So, you know, for instance, news comes on. Great. Masturbate. Watch the news. That's one. Never.

In front of your mom. Mom, no. Never. No, no masturbating in the Farrier household. So it goes really well. But no, with my family, it's great for about a day and then it descends. When you visit your family,

you revert into the weird things from your childhood where they're sort of looking up to you, but then it becomes nagging and then it becomes, I hate it. Yeah. Gotta go. And go when you leave you're like i love the first day but those next two days do you ever go back into your tunnel and no the tunnel got filled in yeah my tunnel's gone now yeah and we moved house when we moved we

had to fill the tunnel in because they would have thought it was like a weird sex dungeon or something well yeah which it might have been. Definitely wasn't. I'm getting the feeling you love bits of the news, but you're not addicted to the news. I'm not. And I was very nostalgic, though, listening to that little intro. I liked hearing all those little,

I mean, obviously a lot of them are bad, but it does transport you to where you were at the time. And I think that's the interesting thing because obviously TV news used to be such an institution and it's where you would get everything from. These days, I feel it's much less important in people's lives because they're up to date on social media and the idea of having to watch the news for the news is in some ways becoming redundant.

But I think I would argue it's still really important to have those newsrooms there. Well, and the 24-hour news cycle at this point has changed news so drastically. I'm sure you'll get into that. But now the news feels ridiculous. They're saying the same thing over and over again because there's one thing to say. Yeah, you're on a endless loop. Dragging it on for 24 hours and everything is labeled breaking news that's one of my biggest american pet peeves that in the last 10 years everything is breaking it's like that can't be everything's new and everything's breaking yeah i find it very funny with news it's built into the title like the

news is new which gets this pressure to kind of make everything seem so so new and when everything's new it just becomes all a bit monotonous, right? Which is what you're talking about. Breaking this, breaking that. It's like, we know it's the news. It's all new. It's not breaking. You don't need to tell me it's breaking.

It's not breaking unless it's OJ or 9-11. Those are breaking news stories, but not like the same story I've been listening to for three days. When there's a camera rolling live in front of you, you can say breaking. What was the biggest breaking news story that you broke? I covered an election one year in New Zealand, which is very hotly contested. Covering politics is always really fascinating. Yeah. But I wasn't very good at that.

I get very stressed on air. I'd fumble. I wasn't good live on TV. My face also isn't symmetrical. So if I'm looking straight down the camera, it's no good. David. I've always got to be on a little bit of an angle away. Whereas in the news, that was a big problem I had.

You've got to look straight down the barrel. Yeah. And that's when all your weird asymmetrical face sort of pops out of you. I did not think your face is asymmetrical. Because you've only seen me on an angle. I'm staring at your face. No, but I'm on an angle. Now you are. Always. I've always got seen me on an angle. I'm staring at your face. No, but I'm on an angle. Now you are. I've always got my face on an angle.

No, the picture I posted yesterday when I was posting it, I thought, I literally thought to myself, David's face is so symmetrical. Oh, that's the kindest thing anyone's ever said. I really thought that. If you had told me that maybe 10 years ago, maybe I'd still be in news. I wouldn't have gotten out of it. Okay, well, I guess it's good I didn't because you wouldn't be here. I roamed the streets as I always, just to see what news people were into. This is what they had to say. In terms of entertainment value and somebody that I can watch and enjoy, I would go with the NBC Morning Show. Their cast of anchors is fantastic, both entertaining while providing updates. I mostly listen to BBC or Al Jazeera.

I try to follow news that is critical of the U.S. in a way that is more global. The best news program in the U.S. currently and potentially always is CBS Sunday Morning. This is a show meant for happy, retired people. It's always focused on the good, which I think we have too little of currently. I don't think that we need to be listening to the news as often as we are. I don't feel that we really have the ability to say that we don't have biased news in America anymore.

NBC5 chief meteorologist Tom Vestner is my absolute favorite. As a kid, I was so intrigued by the weather and the mysterious ways of the sky. And fucking Tom always delivered the forecast with such triumph. People get very passionate about weather on the news. And that's something on local news that I've always found fascinating is you've got the big news of the day, wars, chaos, politics, then maybe you've got some sport. And then suddenly it's just a person looking at a weather map going, this is how hot it is in Colorado. I find that so funny.

Tom Skilling was the Chicago weatherman. He's very beloved. Yeah, people love him. Right. So people are just so passionate. Tom Skilling was the Chicago weatherman. He's very beloved. Yeah, people love him. Right. So people are just so passionate. They get addicted to specifically to the weather presenter, right? Because it's always some like sweet man or woman. But yeah, no, it's the same in New Zealand. They have to have a really endearing personality because it's just them and a mat.

You'd be a good weather presenter, Rob. You're calm. Oh, thanks. They have a very symmetrical look often. They have to be symmetrical. Yeah. And it definitely helps if you're, I think, attractive or really serious looking. So people are like, oh, you're a meteorologist.

Because obviously you can't be beautiful and a meteorologist. Obviously. Just one or the other. Yeah. Anyway, I wanted to learn more about American news specifically because it does have a huge, really rich history. This is what I learned. I wanted to get schooled about the state of American news, so I got in touch with Stacey Scholder. She's a professor at the University of Southern California

teaching TV journalism. She worked in all kinds of newsroom roles for over 20 years, including being a producer at KABC-TV, Channel 7 in LA, and an executive producer at KNBC, Channel 4. She's won two Emmys, two Golden Mics, and the Associated Press Award for Best Newscast. I started in television news in the early 80s and have worked in New England, and then I came back to California, which is where I'm from, and worked in Los Angeles. I did work at the local ABC. I worked at the local NBC.

I worked at the local CBS, which is not uncommon in a big market like this. There was a lot of men in the newsroom and there was coffee and smoking and the teletype wire was rolling. It really wasn't 24-7. You'd be working towards this one big bulletin of the day. It's all very Rod Burgundy and Anchorman. It's amazing how accurate a lot of that

film was. I love scotch. I love scotch. Scotchy scotch scotch. Here it goes down, down into my belly. That is good. How much time till we're on? We're on!

Run! What? We're on the air right now. America's first ever regular TV news show went out in 1940, but probably didn't really count because it was just a radio news show rebroadcast on TV. CBS entered the news game a year later with a dedicated TV news show that went out at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. And by the time Pearl Harbor was being bombed, Americans were getting used to the idea of TV news. News shows started short, 15 minutes, but by the 50s they went to half an hour. Presenters were trusted and loved, the podcasters of their time. And by the 70s and 80s, the news was the

biggest show of the day. When you think of news in America, what is important about that to you now? I'm glad you asked that question. I got into television news in college, studying something totally different. I went abroad. I went to Paris to study. There were no cell phones back then, and I didn't call home, and I felt very far away. My connection to home was the newspaper, the International Herald Tribune. I felt it was bringing me a piece of home. And so when I came back, that's how I started, decided, you know what, I want to do news. And I really still believe that news is a service. It is a public service. We really have information to impart in our community. There's also that really important idea of the media being the fourth estate, one of the four pillars holding up society. The other three being religion,

the government, and then the rest of us, citizens, the people. For society to function, the media is there to both inform the people and hold the other pillars of power to account. Of course, there are fun stories and there are people stories and feature stories. And certainly politics is part of the service too. It's gotten a little away from just the service and more into the politics and almost the sport of politics. And so local news to me is really very important because we've seen the disappearance of local newspapers

here in this country. And as a result, local TV news and local radio news often is really the only way people can get news about their own communities that they live in. Of course, those local news stations are being sucked up by the bigger news networks. There's less local reporting, with everything becoming more generic and homogenized. Also, less people are watching TV news the way they used to, so less people are watching broadcast news. That means less ad revenue for TV newsrooms, so there ends up being less reporters to inform the public accurately about what's going on. That doesn't mean there's less news, it's just less tailored

to local communities, and to me feels more just a constant stream of dramatic world chaos. As local news disappears in America increasingly, I feel like the social cohesion can kind of be eroded as well. Yeah, that's happening right now with national news, cable news. I was just reading a study by a professor at University of Pennsylvania about polarization and news avoidance. It wasn't really until the last couple of years that I've heard about this term news avoidance, where people just don't want to hear. It's like it's become noise. It's just a lot of back and forth and bickering and the whole issue of what is truth and all of that that just becomes

such an issue as opposed to really what are the facts? What is happening in our communities? What do people know to live safely and to take care of their families and educate themselves? As far as trust goes, last year, TV reporters were rated 15th in a list of most trusted professions in America. They were lower than lawyers, the clergy, and the police. I also think American news has changed so much since it moved to events 24-7. It's a lot of time to fill, as in literally all the time. Opinions entered the scene. As in literally all the time, opinions enter the scene. It's a major problem with the internet and social media and citizen journalism is a whole other area.

Everybody can claim to be a journalist now, which is why I feel like it's so important for us to distinguish ourselves as journalists in what we do and to really earn the credibility and the trust of the people that we serve and to be transparent in that we don't know everything. It's foolish to think that we can tell that to people. I think sort of old school, at the end of the day, the anchor would come on and have all the information that you need to know. And that's just not the way it is. We still are making editorial choices. So as human beings making editorial choices, there's a level of subjectivity in what we do. But I think if we really stick to what the facts are, and there are facts, I do believe there are facts, that we can give people information.

We need to verify it. All those things are the things that journalists need to do. I think it can be great people have cameras and a way to broadcast themselves. It can be a hugely powerful force. That's how the world got to see what happened to Eric Garner as he gasped, I can't breathe, which ignited a whole movement. There's also the flip side. Videos are purposefully cut off halfway through, missing valuable context.

Or maybe the video is accurate but being sent around telegram with the wrong information. The rise of QAnon saw a wannabe citizen journalist trying to arrest politicians, supposed pedophiles, and Tom Hanks for some reason. I guess everyone now has a camera and they have an audience that will follow what they say. What are some things that define a trained journalist and the way they might conduct themselves from someone who just has access to the technology but is not a journalist, even though they might call themselves a journalist? Well, I think you really have to do your research. You have to do your homework. You have to get to know people. You have to talk to people. You have to get information. And you can't just get it from one source. You have to get it from multiple sources

to really verify what are the facts. Oh my God, people have forgotten about sources, haven't they? It's the biggest thing that's vanished thanks to Twitter. Right. I've had students do sort of research about where people get their news. They get it from Facebook. They get it from, we have something called Nextdoor, which is neighborhood news. Okay, deviation. I just got on Nextdoor recently. We don't have it in New Zealand. It's an app where you can connect to your specific neighborhood and post up things that

are happening around you. Mostly, it's just people complaining about each other. It turns into a paranoia machine, Facebook been a million times worse. It turns every neighbor into a deranged combination of journalist and detective. It's where everyone's worst assumptions about each other come to life. Oh, it's crazy. I can't even look at it because I find it so distasteful and so misleading too. And then you get into all kinds of people's biases that they have. In all the noise, it's easy to forget it was a hard-working newsroom

that outed the systemic sex abuse going on in the Catholic Church. And Jeffrey Epstein didn't go down because of some random person watching YouTube videos. It was the tireless work of two female journalists that had the backing of a newsroom. I would say the biggest thing is we hold power to account because a lot of times we don't have a January 6th committee. We don't have investigative teams within the government. So I think that our journalists, our reporters, that's what we're doing. That's what newsrooms are doing. I do feel like there has been a loss of respect for journalists because we see a lot of cable television in this country when I think they believe that they are journalists

and they clearly have a point of view and they clearly have a mission and they clearly have a position and a take on things and alliances with parties and politicians. It's not the straight facts. Stacey worked in newsrooms for 20 years. She's been teaching journalism students now almost as long, 15 years. She says she's inspired by the vibrancy of her students and tries to get them to report the news that's relevant to their generation. A USG senator is at the center of a controversy that might end with him losing his title. Good evening, I'm Suji Nam. And I'm Eitan Wallace. The university has its own TV station which broadcasts news bulletins put on by students. The students that will eventually end up on ABC, CBS, NBC, and maybe Fox.

And while Stacey loves the classroom, she does miss certain days in those big busty newsrooms, even with the sexism and smoking and drinking. Because being at ground zero in a newsroom, you're the first to see so much. We covered some big stories. I was living in Los Angeles during the whole OJ trial back then. I was the 11 o'clock producer. So that was the big show of the day at the very end of the evening. So where were you when that big freeway chase was going on? Were you in a newsroom then or were you in a weekend off? Yeah, I was up in the control room and it was an NBA game

that night. This is a Channel 5 News special report. And that was the big conflict. Oh no, how are we going to cover the NBA finals and the Chase

at the same time? So we had a little box in the corner of an NBA game trying to serve both audiences, right? And then the Chase. I remember the morning of the

OJ murders. I remember getting to the newsroom. Talk about information trickling in. There had been a murder in Brentwood. Murders don't happen in Brentwood. And then somebody I know who lived in Brentwood came in and said, I think that there's something connected to OJ Simpson. It's a thrilling place to be, a newsroom in the middle of something like that, I imagine. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it can happen anytime. So yeah, that was Stacey Scholder. Her whole job is to teach future up-and-coming journalists.

And I guess it's a weird time because journalism isn't what it used to be. A lot of people don't appreciate journalism or have an incorrect view of what it is. And so she's got her work cut out for her because she's got to figure out how to get a new generation of journalists inspired. And they'll be telling news in a different way to what it would have been 20, 30 years ago. So I have a question about anchors. Anderson Cooper is a journalist and an anchor. Yeah, it gets so complicated. So you've got some anchors that are just a face and they look great. And some people, I remember when I was studying journalism in New Zealand, some people just wanted to be presenters.

They had no interest in journalism or breaking stories or holding power to account. They're like, I want to be famous and be a personality. Right. So there's a lot of that. And then you get the Anderson Coopers who are journalists and they can anchor a program, but they can also go into the field, hold power to account and have an idea around the ethics and morals of journalism and that kind of thing.

So how do we know who's who? That's the complicated thing. I think it's really important to look at what journalists are out in the field. I mean, people rag on something like Vice a lot, a place like that. But Vice News on HBO, there's journalists like Isabel Young, and she basically goes into any war zone that's happening. Much more important than a job, I would argue, than someone sort of fronting a bigger show on CNN or Fox or something.

So, I mean, I just always think, is that person telling me the news? Have I ever seen them out in the field actually doing anything? What's your finest moment in the newsroom? I interviewed Justin Bieber when he was just a little baby. He was a little baby Bieber. An infant? He was a newborn? Not an infant.

No, he had just kind of gotten his first bit of publicity. And he was so tiny. And I interviewed him and he was just kind of gotten his first bit of publicity. And he was so tiny. And I interviewed him. And he was just like a sweet kid. And he was kind of nice. And he went to some New Zealand schools and played the drums for the kids and showed off to the kids. He drank a water bottle while he was in the makeup area of our station. And someone got the bottle and put it on Trade Me, which is your eBay.

Oh, wow. And it went for a lot of money because it had his spit on it. But he was just a little child. You could kick him and he'd go flying. He was just a little kid. Don't do that, Zinni. I didn't kick him. Okay.

Why is that your first thought to a kid is you kick him? I see anything small, like a small little dog or something, I want to kick it. I never do. But like a little object, you just sort of picture it going flying. I definitely felt that with him. I went out to the airport and it was just chaos out there. Like New Zealand went crazy for Bieber.

So he was already a big deal then. He just hit. What did you ask him? When you're in New Zealand and you're a new reporter, you always just say stupid stuff like, what's it like to be in New Zealand? What's your favorite thing? You try and make it about your own country. My interview with him was not good. I was new,

you know, I didn't know what I was doing. I was covering cats up trees and stuff. But that was my first lead story on the six o'clock news. Wow. This was when a time when you were still building towards that six o'clock news bulletin. Whereas now when you're a journalist in a newsroom, you're generally trying to get it onto the internet as quickly as possible. Back then it was building towards this big bulletin. Whereas now when you're a journalist in a newsroom, you're generally trying to get it onto the internet as quickly as possible. Back then it was building towards this big bulletin. And that's the way the culture's kind of changed a bit in a newsroom as well. So it used to be you'd get into the newsroom and the goal to be the best reporter was to get your

lead story, the first story at 6pm. It was really exciting trying to get that lead story and I was so proud when I got Bieber. It was when the world was a simpler place, you know, and Bieber was on the front of the news. Stay tuned for more Flightless Bird. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Flightless Bird is brought to you by BetterHelp. Now, one of the things that I find the weirdest about life is that we're just sort of thrust onto this planet with zero instruction manual. We're all here just going, what the F are we doing here, Monica? What are we doing here? And then you do weird things like drink a lot and then eat a burger and then you throw up. You throw up at 3am in the morning. Not talking about me at all.

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They have a 10-year warranty and you get to try it out for 100 nights risk-free. If you don't like it, they'll pick it up for you and take it back. Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows. And the pillows are really good. For our listeners at helixsleep.com slash bird. I wanted to take this documentary in a very different direction now. And it's something about news that I'm particularly passionate about. And I think it's a way to zoom in a bit on how different parts of America cover the news and the angles that they take. I thought back to Stacey talking about that OJ Simpson news report

interrupting the NBA Finals. The clip I played was from NBC5 Chicago back on June 17th, 1994. Watching it back, I realized something. The first thing you heard in that report wasn't any actual news about the OJ chase, but a song, the news theme song, that signaled that something very important was about to happen. As I thought more about this, I realized how each TV news show in America is sort of defined by its theme,

whether it's the 60 Minutes Tick or the orchestral NBC nightly news. orchestral NBC nightly news. I wanted to learn more about the art of the TV news theme song. So I found Victor Vlam, a 38-year-old man in the Netherlands who has the biggest collection of news theme songs on the planet. I've been able to build up to a collection which made it into the Guinness Book of World Records. And it's exactly 1876 hours, two minutes and 52 seconds. And if you play all those tracks continuously, that actually adds up to 80 days of music. So that is actually quite a bit.

Victor has all that music on a website called NetworkNewsusic.com. Music he's been collecting since he was a kid. I've been interested in news theme music since I was young. When I was like five or six years old, I actually just started by recording it from the television speaker with just a microphone that's very close to it on audio tape. And obviously the quality was horrible. And as I got older, I started collecting it more professionally, started contacting composers. They gave me their music, their entire packages, which were not just the themes that you hear on the air, but even the cuts that don't make it on the air, which is obviously quite exciting. I can definitely see how you could fall in love with a news theme song.

Part of it's nostalgia, because so many of these themes never change. Hearing a news theme in 2022 might make you remember back to when you were a kid. If I was really going to start reaching, I'd say that maybe news themes are important to people because they're a stable, regular fixture in an increasingly chaotic, unpredictable world. A lot of people actually write in when they hear a theme that they haven't heard for 30 years. It really transports them back to that time. I'm curious if American news themes differ to the rest of the world's news. I think of the news music of New Zealand. At the moment, it's more synthy and electronic. Victor says American themes are usually more old school. American news music tends to be more of a cliche.

It tends to be more orchestral with a big sound, big trumpets, big percussion. And if you look at news music worldwide, that's not necessarily the case anymore. I think of that NBC nightly news theme, and it's definitely big It was recorded with a 200-piece orchestra. And if you think that sounded like the score for something as grand as The Emperor Strikes Back, you're not exactly wrong. The NBC News theme in the United States for NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. It is composed by John Williams. He's the famous movie composer.

He also did Star Wars, Jaws, and E.T. It has been reported that he actually makes a million dollars a year on just the royalties of his theme for NBC News. And when he was first approached by NBC to do this, he said many times, no, thank you. This is not something I can do. I'm not made for this. But they kept persisting. And at a certain point, he relented and actually did take on the project. But he expected it for it to be just used for a couple of years and then disappear. But it has been used since 1986 on a daily basis since that time, every single day on NBC Nightly News. While NBC went out

and hired John Williams, Fox News went in a slightly different way with their music. The Fox local news theme, because we talked about how music conveys emotion. And that means that a piece of music does something with you. If you think, for example, of the Imperial March that's used in Star Wars, the Darth Vader theme immediately evokes danger, something not good is about to happen. And I think a good news theme needs to evoke the right emotion. And depending on which emotion you want to evoke from your audience, you can use a different style. So the NBC News theme by John Williams is very orchestral, which suggests it's a high quality newscast, a lot of expensive journalism. You can really trust them. But the Fox local news theme

that was used by many Fox stations around the country, it went a slightly different route. Oh, my God. There's a little guitar solo in there. There's an electric guitar in there. Yeah. Actually, Fox News was the first to use a lot of electric guitars in their news music. It is used in some more patriotic-sounding modern country music. So I think that's sort of what it evokes there.

It has something patriotic to it. But this also has very fast rhythms, and it communicates a lot of urgency. It's a bit more flashy, perhaps. I sort of understand that you need to make the decision to be different. And especially many Fox stations around the country, they are sort of the fourth station. They're the three main networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. And Fox is the fourth station. So they had to be different. They had to do it their own way. And so they went this slightly urgent, more tabloidy route. And their news theme reflects that very, very well. Fox went with an electric guitar. NBC got the guy who scored Jaws. All ABC News did was go and watch a movie and decide they

really liked the music. One of the first news themes used in the United States I have for you, it is a theme from the movie Cool Hand Luke. Because in 1968 in New York, the ABC station, WABC there, invented sort of a new format for local news. It was called the Eyewitness News Format. It had reporters on set talking about their stories, happy talk between the anchors, all these aspects that have become as defining things that are related to local news in the United States all over the country. But they started there.

And they also needed a new theme. And what the news director Al Primo did is that he actually was watching a movie, Cool Hand Luke. It was a very successful movie starring Paul Newman. And he sort of thought to himself, gee, that would actually be quite nice as a news theme. So he had it recut. And that was actually something that they used from 1968 until the early 1980s as their theme for ABC Eyewitness News in New York. This is sort of the basis for many news themes that have been used in the United States since. But it starts off with these intense, high-pitched sounds. Imagine that a newsroom is hard at work trying to gather news. Reporters trying to get their story in, people working on the script. That has been used as a template for news stations all across the United States.

It really set the standard there. I guess the main question is, what makes a good theme song? Of course, like with any song, the melody is key. But what makes news music news music? One of the most important things is it needs to sort of catch your attention. And a lot of people, when the news comes on, they might not be sitting in front of the television.

They might be doing the dishes, for example, perhaps finishing up dinner. They're doing all kinds of things. And a news team just needs to let people know, like, OK, the news is going to start. So that's why it often uses very loud percussion. Think of timpani, for example. It uses very loud trumpets. Those are all traditional instruments. I think the second thing for a good news theme is that it has something that's

recognizable, that functions as a sort of sonic branding for the newscast. So, for example, ABC News, they have been using the same audio logo, the sonic signature, if you will, since 1978. In all of their ABC News broadcasts, it always starts with the same da-da-da-da. That was ABC News back in 1978. And while it got a big revamp two years ago, the da-da-da-da-da remains. It's very recognizable to people, so it alerts them to the fact that the news is starting, and not just any newscast, but the ABC World News Tonight with David Muir is starting.

So it serves as a branding exercise. And obviously that can be a melody, but in some cases it's just a sound. I'm curious now how the smaller news stations differ in their theme music. And Victor has agreed to do a spot quiz with me. There are two regional themes. I'd like to ask you if you know which one is used in a big city and which one is used in a rural market. And the first one, let's see if you can actually identify whether it's a big city or a rural market. And the first one, let's see if you can actually identify whether it's a big city or a rural market. Oh, that feels very small town journalist running to jump on the bike to head out to go and get a story. It feels little to me. Okay. Okay. That's interesting. Let's listen to the other one. This is hard because I feel like I don't quite have a grip on America.

See, this feels, I want to say this is a big city. I want to say this has got a bit of class to it. Feels more city-ish. I actually thought this was going to be too easy, but it's not because you're entirely wrong. It's exactly the other way around. The first one actually is used for one of the biggest cities in the United States. It's the theme for ABC7 Eyewitness News in New York City.

And it's the number one market when it comes to size, millions and millions of viewers. And there are some indications of the fact that it's used for a big market. One of those things is that it actually is very fast-paced. It has a really big, urgent sound to it. It's almost like sort of a helicopter that you're listening to that's being played as a sound effect. And many of those big city stations, they actually have helicopters. So I think that's what it's meant to evoke. But yes, it's a really big market.

Okay. That's so interesting. It felt so small to me. That's so strange. I think the reason why you might think that, though, is because it has a synth sound to it. It's a lot of synthesized instruments. There are some real instruments in there, but still a lot of synthesized instruments there. That is sort of disappearing, or at least it's not necessarily disappearing, but they're less noticeable. And these are both themed from the 1990s. The first one is still used to this

day, by the way, and they sort of have that classic 1990s sound. The second one is actually used in rural markets. It's used in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, or at least that's what it was used a couple of years ago. Jefferson City, Missouri, and Dothan, Alaska. It has a slower pace, just 84 beats per minute, for example. And the piano melody is sort of meant to evoke a rural landscape that is calm and peaceful. And that doesn't really sound good in a really big city like New York City. The city never sleeps. See, when you explain it, that makes complete sense.

And I'm nodding along completely agreeing. But here's the thing. Many of those regional differences are actually disappearing in the United States because a lot of stations are being swallowed by these big corporations. And what they do, they buy up all these stations all over the country and they basically give them the same branding because it saves money. So they have the same theme. They have the saves money. So they have the same theme. They have the same graphics.

They even have the same set for their studio. Just local journalists, but really everything else is pretty much cookie cutter. And that's where you really see the local identity disappearing. The United States is essentially divided up into 220 local markets that each have their own stations

with their own newscasts. So of course, making each one unique is important. And while you'd think writing a 15 or 30 second piece of music would be dead easy, it's actually really hard. It's such a difficult thing to do if you're writing a four minute track for a film, you've got so much time to seed emotion and to build to moments. With a news theme song, you've almost got to hit your main emotional beats within about 10 seconds. And that's actually why a lot of composers struggle to do this, because there are some

composers who have been very successful in other genres. They've been asked to do a theme for a television program, and basically they can't do it because they're used to being able to write music for three or four minutes, and 10 seconds is actually quite difficult to do that. So it really has become a specialty. And there are composers who are just specialized in this who do nothing else but create music and news theme music for television media. It has become almost a genre and a profession of its own. While Victor's been talking to me,

he's been lining up some of his other favorite tunes from his favorite genre. Let's go to the CBS Evening News theme because this is a more recent theme. They've switched up themes many times over the past couple of years. A little bit more contemporary than what NBC has, but I'm very curious to hear your thoughts on it as well. I like that it's got a certain urgency to it, but it doesn't feel too self-serious. It feels a bit majestic and maybe hopeful,

and it doesn't feel, it's got those classic news things you want, like some orchestra, but it doesn't feel too overblown and in your face. Exactly. I think they combine two things. I think it's a lush orchestral sound, a majestic sound, if you will. And they have beneath that a layer that is very contemporary with a electronic beat with a lot of inorganic sounds that make it really sound like something that is used in 2019 and later, something very contemporary. But that was CBS.

Maybe we should just complete the three networks here because ABC also has quite an interesting theme. And their recent theme, which is the ABC World News Tonight theme from 2020 by composer Ed Kaloff. And this is what it sounds like. Oh, I know this. It's funny to say, I do know that theme song

and obviously it's a new one. So have they repurposed an older one, but sort of jazzed it up a bit? Yeah, what they've basically done is that since 1978, they've used the exact same music, except they've rearranged it many times to make it sound more modern and contemporary. But that obviously is good branding. That's why it's very recognizable to people. I think it's recognizable to you, but to lots of people. Most people, if they hear it, they probably don't know where exactly it's

from, but they do recognize it because I think pretty much everyone in the United States has at some point watched World News Tonight. But I've also included the original version from 1978 for you. And I think it's completely different, yet it's exactly the same but so so different it's the melody that's the same but everything else has changed it's really very much a theme from the 1970s. It is based on a lot of teletype like sounds. It's like fax machines are going off and they've sort of arranged that into a melody, but it's a very basic sound that was fitting at the time. Obviously, it would be very dated now these days, so they had to modernize it a couple of times. But I think, yeah, as you said, it's the exact same melody. And I think that's kind of interesting about it. I like that about it very

much. People used to watch the news and listen on dinky little radios and TVs that didn't really even have good speakers, whereas now people are watching with surround sound, right? Definitely true, yes. Especially older themes that have survived to this day, they sometimes use pretty bad recordings. And that, unfortunately, does not sound as good on modern televisions. An example of that, by the way, is WPVI, the Philadelphia ABC station. They've done something quite remarkable because they've used the exact same music for literally 50 years. Written by a legendary composer, Al Hamm.

He also wrote the famous Coca-Cola commercial, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing. They actually tried to change that theme song back in 1996. They went to huge expense getting the London Symphony Orchestra to do it. There was an uproar when it went to air. The people of Philly wanted their old news theme back immediately. And they got it. The new theme was pulled off air a few days after it had premiered. The old theme was back. If there are people listening to this podcast in Philadelphia, they know this because it's just become an anthem in Philadelphia. It's played at football games. It's known by everyone.

Even the longer version, the close, has lyrics so people can sing along to it. It's an incredibly famous theme in Philadelphia. But to an outsider, it sounds a bit ridiculous. Now, I'm probably going to offend people in Philadelphia mightily by saying this. I think it personally is absolutely awful. I can't imagine why they would still be using it. I think it sounds horrible, but people in Philadelphia love it.

We should probably take a listen. I think this is probably a good place to wind up this little audio documentary this week. Here's Move Closer to Your World, the full version with lyrics. This has been David Ferrier reporting for Flightless Bird, Los Angeles. Good night. Take a little bit of time Move closer to your world, my friend, and you'll see. Have you ever heard so much news theme music all in one place before?

I haven't. That was a ride. That was joyful. They take you emotionally to different places, right? Yeah. Like some of them you listen to and you light up. Some of them you shrink. Some of them you cringe.

Yeah. There's some I really didn't like. I don't like the ones that sound like laser beams. Yeah, the more modern sort of synthy kind of stuff. Yeah, I like the nostalgia. Yeah, the John Williams orchestral one is just incredible. And also, it's so fun to hear them as the full piece and not just the 20 seconds that you're used to.

If it's a slow news day, sometimes at the end of the bulletin when they play it out, they'll let more of it run. But usually you just hear the first 10 to 20 seconds of it. And it's got to do so much heavy lifting in that time because it's got to get you on board. It's got to take you somewhere. Your brain's got to get excited by it. There's a real art to it. Well, especially if we're ding, ding, ding, breaking news.

They have to jolt you into a new space. Yeah, and even thinking of something simple like other sound effects, the 60 minutes ticking clock, how simple and silly does that seem? But it's so iconic and so known and so important. I wonder how much that person got paid that invented that concept. They probably didn't get paid. Plus you're fired. Plus you masturbated on screen.

Just to clarify, you can't masturbate on a Zoom. I've been thinking about this a lot. You can't do it. It's bad. Don't do it. Just quickly as well, I think there's two movies about news that I just want to recommend. I'm curious if you've seen them. Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal. That's a scary movie. Yeah, but it's a really interesting aspect to news gathering where there's people out there that are stringers, where they are just rogue people with cameramen,

and the whole idea is to get to the accident before it's happened and to shoot the chaos and then to sell it to the highest bidder. Ooh, it's kind of like paparazzi. It's like paparazzi, but for death and awful things that have happened or disasters, you know, fires or a car crash. And I think Nightcrawler, it is a slightly scary film. Not too scary. Jake Gyllenhaal, it's a great look into that world of news stringers and news cameramen.

I think it's really great. Wow. There's another film, Whirlybird, which is about this really incredible couple in Los Angeles that were one of the first to purchase a helicopter to get really incredible news footage from the air. So they got really well-known, awful footage from the LA riots and when people were being sort of dragged out of trucks and beaten up up and that was sort of used to almost put more of a negative stereotype in some of the things that happened. But they were everywhere. They were, I believe, the first couple to get

shots of the OJ chase when it happened, which we talked about earlier. Wait, so this is a doc? It's a doc. Okay, okay. So it catches up with the husband and wife team and some really interesting things happened in their own personal lives. It got very chaotic with their relationship and they also sort of

found themselves whilst one of them was flying the chopper and the other was shooting out the window with a camera. Wow. It's really good. I want to watch that. Whirlybird and Nightcrawler and of course, Ancampan. And of course Newsroom. I want to watch that. Whirlybird and Nightcrawler and of course, Ancampan. And of course Newsroom. I loved

that show. I love Aaron Sorkin. You hate it. No, I don't. I feel it for you. No, no, I know. No, I am a... It's impossible not to like that show. If anything, the cynical part of me gets annoyed that I love it so much because it's all about these grand speeches

and the music rises and it's ridiculous and it's so manipulative. But I watched it all and I loved it all. And I probably cried watching an episode of Newsroom at some point. It's really good. What episode? Well, it's been one of the ones where one of the reporters suddenly was just making a big speech about why journalism is so important. I know.

And journalists do like to wank on about how important they are. Actually, it's something that happens and it is an important part, but also you're just a person doing a job. You are a person doing a job, but I'm very grateful for good journalists because they are the fourth estate and they do keep people in check.

They keep the baddies in check. That's what we're here to do. But I think it's so important, but I also think journalists are some of the most, at times, can be so incredibly self-righteous. It's like they're saving the planet, you know, one news report at a time. And sure, it's important, but also, come on. Just be a human. Yeah.

Just be a human. You're right. Okay, well, this is tricky because I think you got a lot more American, especially this deep dive into the music, which I really enjoyed. But then at the end here, you took it back because you're really cynical. Because I didn't like the TV show newsroom. Yeah, well, no, you liked it so much. You were upset that you liked it. That's so New Zealand. It is actually a very New Zealand approach. It's like, I'm too excited about that thing. So fuck it.

Yeah. I want you to like the things you like. You're not allowed. God. It's like, I'm too excited about that thing, so fuck it. Yeah, I want you to like the things you like. You're not allowed. It's a rule. It's hard to explain psychologically. Yeah, it is because it makes no sense. And I need you to go back to therapy and talk to them about this and don't slam your computer down. Part of the test when I slammed the laptop screen down on her I got so annoyed. In the back of my head I was like, okay, if you really care about me, you'll do a follow-up. You'll email. I think they should.

It took her a month to email me saying, dear David, you seem very angry. You slammed the laptop screen down. Are you okay? I needed that email in a couple of days. It took a month. Dead to me. David, no. I need you to be a little more days. It took a month. Dead to me. David, no. I need you to be a little more open because she's a professional with her own boundaries.

And it's not on her. It's on you to say why you're upset. I think if you're paying someone a lot of money to talk to you about your perceived problems, then when you get angry at them and you slam your laptop screen in their face, they should go, maybe he's extra stressed. Maybe I'll send him a nice little email. Take this out of therapy for one second. Or a gift basket.

Take this out of therapy. Let's say we're here in the attic, okay? And I start screaming at you. Oh, no. And I'm mean. You're angry. You're mean. And I throw a laptop at your face. Yeah. Oh God. Okay.

Yeah. I hate this. I'm mad and mean. What have I done? Pretty much nothing. Okay. And. Sounds about right. And then I storm out. Okay. You're angry. And not only am I angry, I behaved poorly. Yeah. You embarrassed yourself. Yeah, I did. In front of all of us. Yeah. But also, oh, I'm mortified because you're angry. You're throwing a laptop at me. Yeah. But are you like, that was uncalled for. And do you think that you... It's a trick. You're walking me into a trick. Do you think that you should then have to approach me? Or do you think that I, it's on me to be like, hey, David, actually, I'm really sorry I behaved like that. I should not. It's so annoying what you've done.

Because, yeah, it's not on me. It is on you. That's right. Because you're being unreasonable. Correct. But you're assuming that I'm being unreasonable for shutting my laptop screen on my therapist in anger. Whereas what led up to that was all their fault. That's fine.

Because they weren't saying what I wanted them to say. That's fine. But I just think the way in which you handle that situation could have been better. Yeah, I agree. I don't think it's fair for you to punish her for not reaching out right away when it potentially should have been you to reach out and just say, hey, sorry I did that, but I don't feel like I was getting what I needed out of this. You weren't hearing me.

You weren't hearing me. Like that. I really want to know what you guys were talking about. Was it your lump? It wasn't the lump. The lump's all gone. Oh my God. Yeah, it disappeared.

Wow. Got absorbed back into my body, whatever it was. Cancer probably will pop up somewhere else. We'd been talking about some really intense stuff, but then it was. Cancer probably will pop up somewhere else. We'd been talking about some really intense stuff, but then it was something very simple, a really practical thing, and I just wanted some simple advice. Do this.

See, I don't know anything about therapists. They never tell you what to do. I need to be told what to do. Tell me what to do. Just tell me. Don't ever say, what do you think? I'm not paying you to that. I can think.

I don't need to be told. I have my own thoughts. I'm not paying you to tell me to think what I think. That's the problem is what I'm thinking. That's why I slammed the laptop screen down like that. Oh, no, you did it again. You did it again. All right.

Well, you're 0% American. You're barely adopting therapy. You're cynical. Okay. Watch Nightcrawler. Check out Whirlybird. And if you must, watch Aaron Sorkin's Newsroom because it is really inspiring. It's beautiful.

It's what a newsroom and it's what journalism should be about. There we go. One percent. All right. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. bye. Bye.