4 Rules For a More Grown-Up Cable News Culture
Let’s survey the cable news scene briefly, shall we?
Mark Steyn calls CNN “the airport channel,” just another bit of low-grade torture we’re forced to endure whenever we’re obligated to fly.
What with Al Gore selling Current TV to Al-Jazeera, would this be a bad time to mention that Fox News is partially Saudi owned?
I wandered into the living room during the wall-to-wall Sandy Hook coverage to find my mother-in-law tuned in to MSNBC, just in time to hear one of the presenters say something like, “Why is American culture so evil, anyhow?” (I’m paraphrasing because I’ve tried to erase her statement from my brain.)
Traditional news delivery via print and broadcasting, with their deadline-oriented format and relative slowness, have their own built-in flaws.
But in the deadline-free cable news biz, it’s always 6 p.m., and that red light never switches off.
This 24/7 news cycle gives cable a bottomless appetite for sensational (and highly visual) breaking “news” of questionable import. (“Balloon boy”? Seriously?)
Countless critics have already pointed out that cable news rushes to judgement, with sometimes fatal consequences. (See, “Jewell, Richard.”)
Case in point: Almost everything you think you know about Columbine is wrong.
And here’s a list of some of the misinformation you were fed about Sandy Hook in those first few hours.
Newspapers at least make the occasional feint towards old-fashioned respectability by issuing the odd correction. You’ll rarely hear such apologies on cable news, probably because they’d take up so much air time.
Did the relentless coverage of Waco infuriate Timothy McVeigh to the point of homicide? Do we really need to watch cannibalism in progress?
Cable news in its current format — the breathless pace, the reliance upon what seems to be one rather odd individual’s worn-out, twenty-year-old Rolodex for “expert” guests (Dick Morris!?) — has been with us since CNN launched in 1980.
Despite all the criticism and parody, that format is so entrenched I doubt it can be dramatically altered.
However, if you’ll forgive a foreigner for boasting, we Canadians might be able to offer a few tips.
The Sun News Network debuted up here a few years ago. Dubbed “Fox News North” by liberal detractors even before it aired, Sun, being new, had no “bad habits” to unlearn, and a once-in-a-lifetime chance to start from scratch and thus avoid some of its predecessors’ mistakes.
They operate on a budget that probably wouldn’t keep CNN running for a day.
Yet Americans who’ve watched Sun segments via YouTube, my blog, and elsewhere typically exclaim, “Wow! Fox News wouldn’t even do that! Not even John Stossel is THAT cool!”
Here’s what they’re talking about… (LANGUAGE WARNING for some of the videos below)
Say what you want about MSNBC, at least they make few (if any) bones about their bias. FoxNews, on the other hand, seems cowed by their liberal critics, so they are consequently suffering from RINO disease – a misguided effort to be “liked” by enemies who won’t be happy unless FoxNews goes off the air. CNN is a typically liberal news organization that isults everyone’s intelligence by pretending to be objective.
I think FoxNews should follow some of your suggestions. And in that vein, it was a big mistake to let Glenn Beck go. Agree or disagree with his views (and I did a little of both), he was the most original thing going on cable news as long as he was there.
BTW, FoxNews is damn near unwatchable now. The Fox & Friends hosts have always been ditzy airheads, but O’Reilley is way too full of himself and Hannity’s act has gotten old. I can’t stand Karl Rove or Dick “tell em what they wanna hear” Morris, either. I stopped watching regularly over a year ago, and every time I give it another chance, I regret it within 5 minutes.
If CNN was smart, it would woo back Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan.
I doubt that Jeff Zucker would be interested in them.
“BTW, FoxNews is damn near unwatchable now. The Fox & Friends hosts have always been ditzy airheads, but O’Reilley is way too full of himself and Hannity’s act has gotten old. I can’t stand Karl Rove or Dick “tell em what they wanna hear” Morris, either. I stopped watching regularly over a year ago, and every time I give it another chance, I regret it within 5 minutes.”
The fact that they can monoplize the cable socalled news day/channels with its early moring and primetime audience of only about 3M on a good night says a lot! Then they subscribe to that old pretty woman in a short shirt thing says alot also. They are all, women and men alike, self absord, narcissist propagandists, equalled only by MSNBC. Don’t know anything abour CNN!
I did note one thing before I quit watching them. Beyond primetime hours, their sponsors are low budget penile errection disfunction and hot girl hookup ads.
I agree, DRayRaven. I only watch Fox now to see Adam Carolla and Dennis Prager on O’Reilly, and do so via YouTube.
I was SO excited when Fox was finally allowed into Canada that that day I told my husband to drive faster when he picked me up from work, so I could see it at last with my own eyes.
Today? We have Sun on basically from 6 a.m. on. It isn’t perfect by any means but the difference between it and other channels is so startling, you can’t go back to other people’s p.c. pap.
Agreed, Kathy! I’ve been fed the pabulum of the C.B.C. for so long that it’s a wonder that I haven’t grown a third nipple. They are such a shill front for any and all “progressive” ideas that it becomes hard to take any of their journalism seriously. I lived enough in the boonies to have to rely upon them for all of my news from the outside world that aside from shutting the radio off I would have no option than to blow my brains out. The MSNBC of Canada, publically-funded doncha know…
A smirking contest (for charity) between Piers and the Pres while each was giving nonanswers to important unwelcome questions posed by ordinary people would be a huge ratings booster for any network that carried it.
It was a long time ago that I dubbed Fox, “Sun News South.”
The big question though is, will Sun TV survive? Canada is still a more proglib country than the USA, despite having a nominally conservative government.
Market solutions are always the best solutions. Always.
If people had the ability to pick the cable stations they wanted (and pay for those stations ONLY) CNN would cease to exist. Lefties would support MSNBC for a while, but they are creatures of passion, and if/when their passions cooled MSNBC would be in trouble. FOX would soar and new, honest outlet would arise.
Nothing left-wing can survive on its own without a subsidy from the productive class. It’s why they hate legitimate economic analysis.
I had to buy Fox News to get Sun News in a cable package.
Except for the odd occasion, I never watch it.
I find that when I turn on Fox, I see a lot of eye-straining glitz and broadcasters with lots of “zazz”, to quote The Simpsons. Very annoying.
I like how Sun News interviews people that you never see anywhere else on Canadian or American television. I didn’t really know Pamela Gellar well until I watched her on T.V. Muslims are not “my issue” but I’d watch her again because she’s very informative and entertaining.
With Fox, I feel I’m getting right-wing talking points. All well and good, but… it’s nice to watch grassroots people on Sun News talking outside the box, so to speak.
Before Sun arrived, I feared they would be typically dull Canadian TV, but Ezra’s chainsaw routine in the first week sure put that fear to rest. They do a terrific job on a shoestring and I can’t praise them enough.
With the arrival of Sun News, I pretty much put Fox NN out on the back porch, but still check out Stossel, The Five and O’Reilly for some segments. I fear for Sun’s survival though, as they are losing money from being slotted a high dial position and being shut out of about 40% of cable users homes. Major cable carriers affiliated with other news networks block them (hello Bell/CTV). Sun should offer an online subscription service like Beck’s The Blaze.
The more you watch Sun, the less you can watch anything else because the dishonesty of conventional news becomes painfully obvious.
#1 I like Michael Coren where he is now – on Sun News. I don’t even have CNN in my tv package, it is completely useless.
#4 Wouldn’t miss Ezra’s opening statement for anything, love his unapologetic style.
See what y’all are missing?
http://o.canada.com/2013/01/24/twitter-fight-ezra-levant-and-andrew-coyne-face-off-in-light-night-spar/
Sun TV was unwelcomed from the beginning in the Canadian landscape media, remember they had to sue Bell to gain access to some cable providers.
Just a hint, Kathy: it would be professional to indicate that you’re a contributor to the Sun Network right at the beginning of the article. Readers should probably be aware that your shilling for Sun as a supplier, not a fan.
So just how bad were their ratings in the last BBMs, and just how much money HAVE they lost so far?
Looked it up. They’re losing $17,000,000/yr, and draw 0.1% of viewers, behind the CBC (1.4%), CNN (0.9%) and the CTV News Network (0.8%).
The problem is, they’re not a “news” channel: they’re essentially ideological editorialists with a very limited range of topics; as Kathy noted above, dissenting voices are either unwelcome or simply cut off.
I think the best and fastest fix to Cable News would be for Cable Companies to stop bundling and allow for ala cart ordering of all cable fare. (like we used to have in the old days of C Band Dish.)
First, it would be cheaper for the consumer.
1) because you buy only what you want for chanels
2) You DON’T buy what you don’t want.
3) You don’t have to buy what you don’t want BEFORE you can Buy what you do want either.
Fox News is often in Tier 2 of the Cable fare (that is you have to buy Basic Cable [CNN] plus the second level of additions [MSNBC]) if you could buy ala cart you’d find CNN and MSNBC in fewer housholds (mostly those with Fox) and not getting the kickback from the bunded package fees.
The consumer would not have 15,000 channels to sort through either, nor would they have to block MTV because it wouldn’t be bought in the first place.
From what I’ve seen over the years, Fox News has now been added to most basic cable and basic satellite packages, due to its popularity. I’ve stayed at a number of hotels that even in 2011 didn’t even provide any HDTV in the hotel suites, and yet their basic-cable standard-def TV package included Fox News along with only a few dozen other channels.
It’s Fox Business News that is usually unavailable in the basic packages.
Not with ComCast where I live.
I’d like to see them go to all a la cart too but syndication prevents that, according to what the Dish Network people tell me. Hopefully a growing popularity of the Roku along with Hulu & Netflix, which allow far more flexibility with regard to only buying what one wishes to watch & not pay for that which one would rather not will serve to nudge the dish & cable companies to follow suit one day.
Don’t doubt for a second that Murdoch and Fox News have received relentless threats and bribes from our kind and gentle “progressives”, threats both financial and physical. That’s what they do, and I think it’s working.
We need many more conservative news outlets. Marxists have hundreds since every TV program and movie contains unrelenting libwit propaganda. Why should the adults have only two (Fox and talk radio…which you have to seek out, since it doesn’t flow in with the other 999 networks on cable), and one of them, Fox, is becoming more and more compromised every day.
Sun News sounds like a good model.
Fox is getting a bit tiring, what with O’Reilly toning down his emotions in an effort to portray some kind of all-knowing, compassionate national uncle who will protect me from harm. I give Hannity credit for his ceaseless front-line fighting, but it gets numbingly repetitious. More often than not I tune into MSNBC for the laughs. When Chris Matthew’s unveiled the “photograph” of the Republican book of racial codes I laughed so hard my entire dinner came shooting out of my nose. http://www.thedailyrash.com/chris-matthews-unveils-photograph-of-republican-racial-code-book
I almost never get my news from any TV channel any more. Fox’s content is almost “all politics all of the time.” Sorry, but there are things happening in the world that have nothing to do with US politics. Never was a fan of Sean Hannity and OReily is such a pompus ass that I’d just as soon be forced to listen to Obama.
When they (any news channel) actually do try to cover a breaking news story, their coverage is universally horrible. Lacking any information and with hours of airtime to fill, they seize on any scrap of information and rush it on air before verifying whether it’s true or not. In between the scraps of usually inaccurate information comes hours of uninformed commentary and speculation. It’s pathetic.
Agreed. If one really wants to know what’s going on in the world, one is well served, despite the subtle liberal bias, to go to NPR. They may be libbies, but their shows (Morning Edition, All Things Considered) are chock-full of information
Well then, this sort of points to part of what the overall problem is; most of the people watching news channels are aging and expiring. I don’t watch them, but then again I never have. I never get news from TV. Whatever news I feel like hearing about, I get via my phone, laptop, etc. As far as I know what I do is also what the majority of everyone under 70 (and has a life) does.
Don’t watch don’t care. As soon as all the talking heads were Boomers it was drivel.