You talkin’ to us, Mr. President?

Sure sounded that way:

The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates to silly arguments, big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away,” he said toward the end of his State of the Union speech.   State of the Union Address.

And don’t think we’re fooled because he singled out “TV pundits.” He meant all of us—print, broadcast, cable, Internet. He was calling us frivolous simpletons.

Tempting one to reply: “Listen, fella. You were elected to run the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, not to censor, browbeat, intimidate, or even critique the journalistic fraternity/sorority. After all, almost everyone else is in on that gig. Don’t you have enough else to do?”

As it happens, that reply has not been audible, for which there could be at least two explanations: (1) Obama was right, or at least he had a point; (2) Nobody appears to be paying any attention to him anyway.

Some clarification of both the above assessments. To say that the President had a point is not to endorse the interpretation that he called all journalists frivolous simpletons. We are not. Actually, rather few of us are both, though the percentage who are—or who often enough act as though they (we) are—one or the other may be higher than we find comfortable.

And the judgment that nobody seemed to be paying him no never-mind is based on substantially less than a scientific or comprehensive survey. In this case, the surveyor (me) doesn’t even get some of the cable stations whose pundits are most likely to “reduce serious debates to silly arguments.” Still, the punditry/analysis visible the Wednesday morning and evening after the Tuesday night speech was indistinguishable from the punditry/analysis the previous days, which was not notable for any shortage of frivolous simplisticalness.

No surprise, there. Neither journalists nor the pseudo-journalists who dominate the cable commentariate work for Obama. As long as their bosses approve, they’ll continue on their merry ways. The bosses, of course, will approve as long as the ratings/circulation/traffic holds up.

But it is not holding up. With a few exceptions, news outlets are losing customers. Seen from that perspective, maybe the President wasn’t scolding the news world so much as he was giving it a friendly, helpful, business tip. Citizens turning away are also readers, viewers, listeners, and clickers-in turning elsewhere. Could Obama have been suggesting that a more sober, substantive, and (in some cases) sane approach might actually be good for business?

If that was his suggestion, we’ll probably never find out if it was a good one because nobody seems likely to try that experiment. So far, at least, the conventional wisdom is for television news to try to deal with lower ratings by maintaining inanity, and print news to deal with declining circulation by cutting costs.

The big exception here of course is Fox News Network, which attracts more viewers than its major rivals—CNN, MSNBC, CNBC—put together. Though the connection might not please either party, Fox’s success could be consistent with Obama’s (sort of) suggestion. Fox does not skimp on dealing with serious debates and big issues. It is sober, or at any rate it is somber, if not in dread, over current conditions. It is substantive.

And always sane? Well, two out of three ain’t bad, and proclaiming that the Obama Administration is “taking you (meaning, presumably, all of us) to a place to be slaughtered” (Glenn Beck, last Nov. 9) has the advantage of not being conclusively refutable. Glenn Beck on President Obama

Besides, the formula seems to be working. Fox News may not qualify as “news” to journalistic purists, and it may appeal only to a niche, but it is apparently not a tiny niche, and perhaps it is growing.

Elsewhere, journalists (and pseudo-journalists) who continue on their merry ways are not fools. They just sometimes play one on television, radio, in the newspaper or on line. Even those bosses who approve as the audience declines aren’t fools. Nor, really, are they cowards, at least not all of them. Perhaps they’re just playing the hand they’ve been dealt.

In the January 25 issue of the New Yorker magazine, Ken Auletta wrote an article about the Obama Administration and the media which quoted New York Times Washington Correspondent Peter Baker describing the new journalistic reality in town. Years ago, according to Baker, a reporter had “the luxury of writing for the next day’s newspaper. He had at least a few hours to call people, to access information, to provide context. Today, as much as you want to do that, by the time your deadline comes around you’ve already filed for the Web.”     Ken Auletta in New Yorker Magazine

Maybe more than once, Auletta noted, and by then the reporter may also have been on the radio, appeared on television, done a podcast. All that takes time and thinking.

“When do you have time to sort through data and information and do your own research?” Baker said, “Even with a well-staffed news organization, we are hostages to the non-stop, never-ending, file-it-now, get-on-the-Web, get-on-the-radio, get-on TV media environment.”

Wow! If you were ever a Washington correspondent who tried to do in-depth reporting (and I was), this is depressing. It’s hard not to feel sorry for Baker and his colleagues who are trying to do the job right, but are overwhelmed by the new technology and the new economics of the business.  Being a Washington correspondent doesn’t seem like fun any more.

No doubt the superficial pleasures remain—the parties, the tumult, the camaraderie, the ego-gratification of being asked your opinion on TV and having the president know your name. But the greater satisfaction that comes from getting an important story right—not just the facts but the significance, the nuance, the complexity—and actually informing the public in the process, that seems almost out of reach.

Not entirely, because some people still do it. But, as the President of the United States just impudently—but accurately—reminded us, less often than they engage in silly arguments or mouth meaningless (if not dishonest) slogans. Under the circumstances, there’s barely time or energy to do much more.