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Billy Bush is part of a much bigger problem: Column

After controversial audio was leaked between television host Billy Bush and Donald Trump, Bush has been suspended from his new gig at the 'Today Show'. USA TODAY NETWORK

The line between news and entertainment is blurring, and that's a disservice to all of us.

Billy Bush just got suspended from NBC for his part in a recorded conversation with Donald Trump in 2005. Trump, as you no doubt know, was talking about how his celebrity status gave him license to grope women at will. Bush egged him on and evensaid at one point, “Yes, The Donald has scored!”

To say the least, the exchange wasn’t flattering to Bush, but one could attribute his behavior to someone who got caught up in a stupid moment of celebrity worship. In his apology, Bush said: “I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along.” That much is certain.

But I think what happened with him is symptomatic. The problem lies not so much with Billy Bush himself. It lies with NBC and other networks that blur news and entertainment and do the public a disservice.

I come to this discussion as a veteran of CNN. I was a CNN correspondent from 1997 to 2008, and should note that while I may admonish my former employer, I look back on my experience fondly. That’s because I worked with people who set high standards. It wasn’t unusual for one my scripts to go through four stages of vetting before the story hit air. So much of CNN was about getting the facts straight and the story right.

Of course, other forces were in play. CNN was and is under constant pressure to make a buck. As Fox News took the lion’s share of the cable news audience in the 2000s, CNN grappled for answers, adding personality-driven shows and hosts with attitude. In 2007, I did a live shot from Chicago with TV lawyer Nancy Grace. While I was reporting on a crime story, she badgered me on air to take a side, the one she agreed with.

I did my best to maintain objectivity, but it was clear things were changing. I realized that most of the time, I was going to be a reporter adhering to those high standards. But some of the time, I was going to be on an entertainment show, where the rules just didn’t apply.

Billy Bush came to television in the midst of that shifting landscape. He jumped from radio to Access Hollywood, an entertainment program within the NBC-Universalempire. His specialty was yucking it up with celebrities.

Last May, Bush got a gig at the Today show, a move which by industry norms was not unusual. National morning news programs make a lot of jack for the networks, and they do so by straddling different identities. At the start of the day, they cover mostly hard news, but over the course of a morning, they get softer.

However, the transition isn’t exactly clear cut. The A-team, folks like Matt Lauer andSavannah Guthrie, also handle silly stuff. The B-team, folks like Bush, sometimes have to tackle serious issues. Bush would know. At the Rio Olympics, he was roundly criticized for bungling an interview with swimmer Ryan Lochte, and for defending Lochte when it was clear he had lied about vandalizing a gas station.

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Now, in the wake of the Trump tape, Bush has apologized. NBC executives reversed course after first saying they had no plans to discipline him. Bush has been suspended, and who knows whether he’ll come back.

There’s plenty of hypocrisy to go around. The push for ratings has steadily dissolved a boundary between news and entertainment, between journalists who are knowledgeable and fair, and happy talkers or bloviators who are not. People like Nancy Grace, Glenn Beck and Billy Bush might seem like different types, but they’re all examples of folks who bring opinion or glitz to the news world. When NBC hired Bush, it got someone with a history. Yes, on that bus in 2005, Bush was crude, but he was also doing what he had always done professionally — sucking up to celebrity.

In the wake of this mess, NBC officials may act like they’re making wise judgments. But that network, like many others in American broadcasting, has contributed to a media landscape where there’s barely a distinction between goofballs and dedicated news people. In a world where we need to know the difference, that blur is a bad thing.

Keith Oppenheim is an associate professor of broadcast media production atChamplain College in Burlington, Vt., and a former correspondent for CNN.  

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Source: USA Today:

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