But the journey has begun and there are a hundred or so news organizations that have signed on for the ride. I'm not gloomy about the future. But O'Neil sees this trend, with newspapers fighting for their survival, as leading to better, more serious, more thoughtful journalism because that kind of journalism is no longer done by television and though he concedes the audience for quality may be smaller, it is attentive and affluent and therefore more attractive to advertisers. Shenk says these skills are needed more than ever in an information-soaked world where the Web rules, everyone is a publisher and the din is deafening, the babble overwhelming. Nine years after CBS's decision to broadcast not a presidential debate but a baseball game, the deterioration of network news standards has accelerated to the point where a news division president now speaks the language of the marketing trade, not the language of journalism, and certainly not the language of democracy.
Network news is sick.
Mr. Heyward thinks he's hired the doctor, instead he's hired the disease.