I've become very interested in the spectrum of political discourse as seen on the cable news channels that are conveniently right in a row on my cable provider's dial. I can flip from Fox to CNN to HLN to MSNBC, and I find myself at night flipping it back and forth through them, and it's something of an addiction.
I just don't need cable news. There's nothing that happens on cable news that I don't already know. I'm talking about just the acquisition of information, learning things. What is on cable TV is not that. Cable news isn't news. What is happening on cable news right now is a political assassination of not just Donald Trump, but of ideas and cultural mores that I believe in.
Living in L.A. keeps me in my car a lot, and I'm constantly flipping back and forth between the following Sirius/XM Radio stations: NFL Radio, MLB Radio, POTUS, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News.
Flip through the channels, and there is no denying it: The world of cable news - and their network chat-show brethren - is very, very white.
I get really frustrated during a crisis when I go through all the cable channels and find - very often with the exception of CNN - that I'm not watching news at all. You think, 'Well, God... there are talk shows, talk shows, talk shows and everyone is an expert!'
I get really frustrated during a crisis when I go through all the cable channels and find - very often with the exception of CNN - that I'm not watching news at all. You think, 'Well, God... there are talk shows, talk shows, talk shows and everyone is an expert!
When Bernie Sanders was announcing that he was going to be a candidate for the nomination of the Democratic Party in Burlington, Vermont, I was the only cable host between FOX, MSNBC, and CNN that was there to cover it live.
CNN's problem goes to its very core and to the identity it's sought ever since the rise of Fox News, on its right: CNN is the channel for people who don't want to watch the other channels! That's a stupid strategy.
The Fox News cable channel is doing very well because there is a market for what Fox News has to offer.
Depending on what state you live in, you may only have right-wing talk radio and FOX or CBN with MSNBC three hundred channels down the dial.
'Fox lies' has become a favorite mantra of the Left, yet there is a reason Fox News blows away the other cable networks in ratings and is more trusted as a news source than any other television network.
What MSNBC is, what cable news prime time has become in the shows that get the ratings, is the oped page of the newspaper.
I go on all the channels, mostly CNN and MSNBC. I have gone on Fox every couple of months.
I've been on MSNBC and CNN and Fox News. Not just Fox News, not just CNN.
Rarely, if ever, has a cable news channel employed a host who has previously campaigned for the business goals of the channel's parent company. But as channels like MSNBC have moved to more opinionated formats, they have exposed themselves to potential conflicts.
Go to Fox News for conservative, maybe go to msnbc for liberal, and be right here on CNN for the God's honest truth.
The weakness of cable news is that it chases its audience around. Your audience wants fast-paced, popular news. It needs real news. Cable news changes its stripes based on audience reaction. Viewers are reacting well to breaking news? You probably do more breaking news than you need to. The struggle is building something so that people will come to you, as opposed to constantly changing what you are because you're unsure of where the audience is.