The news media should stop listening to marketers and give the audience a little more credit, CNN anchor Bernard Shaw said after picking up a Walter Cronkite Award for excellence in journalism in Phoenix.
Newspapers and broadcasters began cutting back their stories when marketing studies showed a decline in people's attention span, Shaw said Wednesday."I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that as journalists, if you do your job and get the information out, our viewers are very sophisticated and very intelligent," he said.
"I think that we journalists sometimes insult their intelligence and their dedication to be informed students, because we start listening to marketing people instead of following our instincts."
The Cronkite award was bestowed by Arizona State University.