Demise of local TV shows will give us more news, less empathy

The Boston Herald

Beverly Beckham

Maybe it's just nostalgia. Age kicking in. A longing for something I never knew I wanted in the first place.

So what if "People Are Talking" is going off the air in June. What impact will this have on my life? None. I hardly ever watch the show. I hardly watch any TV. What do I care what airs and what doesn't.

I don't.

And yet I do.

For this cancellation marks yet another end: the end of local talk TV. Is this a big loss? No. I don't suppose it is. Change is part of life. Times change, needs change. And trends, including television programming, come and go to accommodate.

And yet the demise of this last of the home-grown television talk shows makes me sad, for it is one more end to something that allowed us to get to know one another, that brought us face to face.

"People Are Talking," like "Good Day" and "Morning Live," were about us, about New Englanders. These shows told our stories, brought our issues before the public, strutted our talents. They were closeups of local events important to us. They were the party line, the corner store, the family doctor. They knew who we were.

And who are we now?

We are student numbers, license numbers, MasterCard numbers, Blue Cross numbers. We have been canceled as individuals, as surely and smoothly as "People Are Talking" has been pulled from the air. As numbers, we are more manageable and cost efficient than we were as people. But we have lost our individuality along the way.

Today's mindset is that big is better. That's why we're numbers. That's why we have big supermarkets and big stores, big schools, big conglomerates. That's why networks go after big audiences - because big saves time and money and gives everyone more for less.

More for less. With "People Are Talking" off the air, there will be space for more news - seven additional hours of it every week. We'll get more facts, more figures, more medical reports about what does and doesn't cause cancer, obesity, sterility, baldness and flatulence.

There'll be more footage of exploding cars, guns and tempers; more stories about terrorists, rapists, murderers, kids killing kids, men beating on women; more film from around the world of death and destruction.

But we will have less understanding, less revulsion and less involvement because when news from everywhere comes at you so many hours a day, it anesthetizes; it drains you of hope and leaves you tired and overwhelmed, burdened by situations over which you have no control.

Because you can't possibly change all that's wrong with the world, because you'd have no idea where to start, you become angry and cynical, and worst of all, you become defeated.

Local talk TV was a sidebar to hard news. It didn't drop just facts in people's laps. It didn't offer just a three-second glimpse of someone.

"Don't write about man," Mark Twain told aspiring writers a century ago. "Write about man."

That's still the key to getting people to care. We empathize with one man. We hear one story and reach out and help. But when it's 100 stories, 1,000 stories, 10,000 stories, we sit paralyzed.

The other day The Patriot Ledger wrote about a 5-year-old girl who won a bike and gave it to a 5-year-old boy she didn't even know. The boy has leukemia. The little girl's mother had read about him a few months ago and mentioned him to her daughter. The girl said she wished she could do something to help.

When she won the bike last week, she knew what she could do.

People helping people, face to face. A local TV talk show would pick up on this story. And viewers would be moved and inspired and some would reach out.

News programming will tell us more. But what is the purpose of knowing everything if we do nothing?