Now, here is a real opening for bipartisanship.
“One of the frustrations is that there is more attention on Britney Spears getting out of a car without underwear than there is about who is going to be the next president.”
— Mike Huckabee, quoted by CNN, complaining about the lack of media attention to his campaign.
I haven’t been watching much cable news lately, but I can understand the frustration. The cable news is totally ratings driven and, for some reason, the people actually reward diversionary programming. Color me idealistic, but I don’t think news should be based on ratings. The result is a kind of ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ attitude. Of course, in an effort to sustain public tolerance for the war in Iraq, the cable news, especially FOX, have all but created a news blackout of blood spilled in Iraq.
Philadelphia could probably improve tourism if it took the same attitude and convinced the local news channels to ignore any evidence of gun violence in the city. But that isn’t any way to cover the city.
I disagree. There’s more than enough coverage of who’s going to be the next president. Unfortunately the coverage has the same depth and usefulness as coverage of celebrity undies. More coverage of politics, tv news style, would improve nothing.
Huckabee should steer clear of any topics involving underwear
What is Huckabee’s claim to fame, other than losing 100 pounds? Inventing the “obesity” report card for Arkansas school kids. Which the current governor wants to drop, because it does more toward shaming kids than helping them get healthy.
What a putz. Another ex-governor from a hell hole state pretending to run for office. It’s the same game they pull on those Pat Robertson prayer runs. Call now, send money or Jesus dies again. Huckabee and these other tail biters must be guaranteed a certain amount of money just to show up and pretend they’re relevant.
So drop em Mikey. It’s for the sake of the party of Big Ideas.
The cable news is totally ratings driven and, for some reason, the people actually reward diversionary programming.
I just plain don’t believe that. Go to Google News and you consistently see real news stories float to the top. Even with relentless hype the celebrity panty stories almost never make it to the top. Google News is driven by clicks, so clearly people are not clicking on those stories.
Moreover real news has grown. BBC has more outlets than ever in this country, even Deutsche Welle is growing, though still tiny. It is because both of them cover actual news.
I don’t know why the cable management keeps putting out a ghastly product, but it is not because it is box office.
Look at the cable news ratings on a show by show, topic by topic basis and you will no longer have doubts.
Investigations and fact checking is such hard work. It’s so much easier to babble on about nonsense.
Everyone knows that the best way to improve the bottom line is to lower expenses.
Maybe we should consider charges of antitrust violations. They conspire with each other to keep the quality low.
The Huckster should be glad nobody is paying attention to his run. The financial ‘management’ of his administration would be a fine start at seeing why he shouldn’t be put anywhere near a budget : not that there aren’t other reasons to ‘forget’ him in a hurry.