And what needs to change?

Question: What needs to change in the media today?

Tom Freston: Well I never really thought of the media as some kind of boogey man, that something has to change.  I mean the media now is so diverse and so complex.  And there’s so much of it, you know, you can find problems with anything I suppose.  But the fact of the matter is a lot of the media today isn’t targeted to me – or isn’t targeted to any person in particular.  They look for certain market segments and they go for them, and they really don’t care for anything else or about what anybody else thinks.  And you know professionally I was part of that process for a long time.  But I do believe today if you’re an active, involved, educated, thoughtful person, you can find a mix of media that appeals to you, satisfies you more readily, and better than at any point and time in history.  So you can say, “Oh my god, the media.  They’re so exploitative.  They lean towards the sensational thing.”  Or, “They don’t have enough international news coverage.”  But you know it’s your decision what you wanna watch.  And there’s just so many other options I really have a hard time feeling sorry for anybody who has that point of view.

Recorded On: 11/5/07