Hi Jeff, my two pennies.
The model of journalism in film-to-video was predicated on an ideology to attract a broad viewing base, hence ‘broadcasting’. When it was launched in the 1950s against the existing might of cinema, television needed to justify its cost and peddle the idea it could go one stage further than cinema — reach a broad base. Surprisingly, against a chorus of pessimism, television took off. Grierson, the father of documentary recognised its prowess early. It was cinema in everyone’s living room remembers Robert Drew, in a short film I made about him, and a direct comms tool for politicians.

But so long as TV News spoke to, or pretended to address its broad base, the minorities (pick any and test) it didn’t matter. Consumption engineers and marketeers advised execs what sold and where advertisers would dig deep into their pockets. Journalists could, and do exercise a moral compunction, but if the minorities neither possessed political weight nor financial buying power, they were largely insignificant to patterned agendas. This matrix worked until…[ insert here a date when a minority group acquires (power, or ephemeral power e.g. ballot box)] So here we are. Of course the reasons for broadcast journalism’s state on the operating table are palimpsestic and long standing. Will it change? It’ll modify some things to acquiesce and quiet down those who could hurt its business model, then it’s back to business, broadcasting. I talk briefly about diversity of views and the background for journalists being something we could consider here.