OXFORD — For America to get healthy, financially and otherwise, the big boys in media would have to change their ways. That’s unlikely, so their audience is going to have to figure out — and reject — their game.

The evidence?

In programming following the recent days of great financial turmoil, CNN didn’t dispatch reporters to interview people who might know something about the causes and effects of the situation. Instead, Wolf Blitzer concentrated his efforts on getting quips from Republicans who are or may be running for president in two years. Guess who the Republicans blamed? Within hours, a contest was under way to determine which one could say the most outrageous things about Barack Obama. And this was exactly what passed for news during the 2008 Wall Street upheavals. Democratic hopefuls were paraded before microphones to say outrageous stuff about then-President George W. Bush.

The pattern of not doing any real reporting and instead just pitting people against each other is the gold standard for national broadcast journalism. It’s very different from journalism as practiced by community journalists in Mississippi and other states, but that’s not really apparent without stopping and thinking about it.

As this state’s general election approaches in November, it’s almost guaranteed that the newspaper printing this column and other papers in the state will explain ballot processes and issues. For example, readers will be provided resources to study the pros and cons, if they wish, of the three amendments proposed to the Constitution.

Community journalists do this kind of reporting day in and day out. Turner Catledge, late managing editor of the New York Times, started his career at the Neshoba Democrat in Philadelphia and said newspapers “hold up a mirror to the people they serve.” Based on what they see, people are free to be indifferent or active, to let problems fester or to take steps to improve their towns.

This is not the model for network or cable news companies.

Time and market testing has shown that the fastest way to get and keep a TV audience is by instilling fear, inciting conflict or revealing secrets. News shows and entertainment shows use these approaches. Mystery, excitement, violence and confrontation sell.

A couple of years ago in what has become an iconic video on You Tube, comedian Jon Stewart appeared on CNN to beg jousting hosts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson to “stop hurting America.” Stewart, who afterward became something of a one-man-band for better reporting, tried to make an age-old point: The best journalism is solution-oriented.

Don’t confuse that with pap. Catledge and other great editors in Mississippi’s history have made the point that newspapers are not — or should not be — cheerleaders for their hometowns. If a look at the scoreboard shows a town is behind in a lot of ways — losing jobs, not taking advantage of opportunities, being led inefficiently or by unwise or corrupt people and policies, that needs to be reported. News isn’t always happy or welcome. Often there are heated confrontational and adversarial components, even in community papers.

The difference is that for community journalists, conflict is an accepted part of the process. For CNN and the others, conflict is an end unto itself.

It doesn’t take long to go back and document that every president since Ronald Reagan has pledged to bring a “new spirit of cooperation” to governing in America.

It doesn’t take long to realize that the hopes each president had for solving challenges — financial and otherwise — might be what the people said they wanted, but they’d tune in to watch the name-calling. We are excitement junkies and the news and entertainment corporations are our pushers.

Many are saying that perhaps at long last there’s recognition that the nation is up against the wall, in financial terms at least. Many are saying it’s time for an era of financial realism, that a half a century of cooking the public’s books must end and that it will take consensus — not combat — to get where we need to be.

We can hope that day — as painful as it may be — has arrived.

If so, don’t expect Wolf and the others to stop doing what they do best.

The painstaking gathering of information, checking details and actually finding ways to solve problems is boring.

Name-calling makes the cash registers ring.

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Charlie Mitchell is a Mississippi journalist. Write to him at Box 1, University, MS 38677, or e-mail cmitchell43@yahoo.com.