...about mainstream 24-hour TV news. An excerpt from her Huffington Post article:
Profound sadness was my dominant emotion as I watched one of the cable news shows this morning. Two attractive young 'political analysts', a handsome African American and a winsome blonde, (guess their politics), 'illuminated' the presidential race. Vacuous and incendiary were the only modifiers that came to my mind. Whatever your politics, whichever news channel you favor, the diet is poisonous.
When I joined CNN in 1989, I was ecstatic. To be part of an organization that could spend 24 hours a day covering important issues around the world was a dream come true. While the vision didn't always comport with reality, it matched up much of the time. As time went by and competition emerged, we all know what happened. Ratings began to drive agendas and heat over light became the norm. In recent years, the lip gloss quotient (it works for both genders) has become more important than IQ. The definition of fair and balanced has nothing to do with truth and is satisfied if voices from the far left and right are encouraged to spew their dogma in angry debate. The anchors are there to simply fuel the fire with no duty to steer guests to substantive conversation, much less to insist on facts over fatuous rhetoric.
No comments:
Post a Comment