Television News And Space

Television news has always had an odd relationship with the U. S. manned space program. During Mercury and Gemini, the networks of the day covered it extensively. There seemed to be a perfect match, after all-- television was a visual medium, and NASA provided remarkable visuals. Walter Cronkite and CBS, for example, also provided extraordinary coverage of the Apollo 11 mission, but by Apollo 13, the networks planned only limited coverage. That changed, of course, with the life-or-death battle Apollo 13 became, but subsequent Apollo missions again received limited live coverage-- as if every space mission is not a life-or-death battle.

The space shuttle program has operated in a different media environment. Cable news channels have meant anyone interested could see most or all shuttle launches live. Still, most were ignored by the major broadcast networks, and space policy was rarely addressed in a substantive way by either cable or broadcast news.

The same pattern was followed with the recent Falcon 9/Dragon launch-- limited coverage by the broadcast networks of an event that could mark a new era in the Space Age. The simplest explanation of that lack of interest, perhaps, is that the network news divisions don't understand the potential impact of private corporations operating space programs of their own. Why those vaunted divisions don't understand that when they do know who Kim Kardashian is lies beyond the scope of this blog. That it seems to be the case, however, is probably not a good sign for serious journalism at the network level. Such a situation would be unfortunate for the nation generally-- well beyond any effort to reach into space.