Anyone who is frustrated with the horrific state of television news these days might be surprised to hear who I think is to blame.
Ted Turner.
The Mouth of the South? Are you kidding?
Yes and no.
For a guy who owned the Atlanta Braves baseball team, who won the America’s Cup and who started Superstation WTBS, Turner will be remembered for something far bigger.
He founded CNN.
He started the first — and let’s be honest, the best — 24-hour news channel. He did some other good things along the way, including telling his employees to call news from other countries “international” and never to call it “foreign.”
Pretty good, huh?
Well, the problem is you can’t fill 24 hours with actual news and reporting. It’s too expensive. So you repeat yourself a few times a day, and then you fill hours and hours with commentary and opinion.
One particular CNN show sent us sliding down the slippery slope. “Crossfire” had a commentator from the left and another from the right arguing the issues of the day. The middle didn’t matter.
Jon Stewart actually appeared on the show in 2004 and argued that this sort of show was hurting America.
He was right, but by then there were more channels than just CNN and far worse shows than “Crossfire.”
Of course I’m talking about Fox News, which is far more opinion than news. Ironically, if you look at Fox today, the big star is Tucker Carlson, who was part of the “Crossfire” show Stewart attacked in 2004.
Fox has far lower standards than CNN and is far more opinionated, but my point is, Fox couldn’t exist if Turner had never started CNN.
I’m sure some people will say it’s better to have more news than just the 30 or 60 minutes the networks used to allot for their evening broadcasts.
Maybe, but we’re not getting more news.
We’re getting more opinion.
And worse opinion.
Would anyone compare Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity favorably to Walter Cronkite?
Not anyone who didn’t have an ox to gore.
My wife watches CNN, and no matter how good the host is, there’s still more opinion than there is actual news.
That’s what sells soap.
That’s what dumbs America down.
Thanks, Ted.