Posts tagged msnbc
“It is in the economic interest of cable news and talk radio to outrage their audience, to turn their segments into car wrecks that we can’t take our eyes away from,”
He added: “The economics favor the extreme point of view and the paranoid claims. You get better numbers and you can control the expense side by reducing a reporting staff.”
“The country’s 24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the dangerous, unexpected flaming ants epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.”
