Let’s stop derailing threads with pointless discussions about the quality of cable media outlets, and start railing on them or praising them (lol) here. This thread is intended for general cable media criticism/discussion, and the ‘pontificate’ thread should continue to be used when specific events happen that deserve extra scorn.
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I’ll start:
Cable media is absolute garbage.
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I have a problem with ‘absolute’, but carry on.
My take: cable news is irredeemably bad. Complex issues get 4 minutes at best before you get served an ad for curved penis disease. Bad faith galore, pundits fake fight on air and probably go to the same sex orgies after. There is no memory, let’s say somebody did offer a constructive analysis the day before, tomorrow when the subject is discussed again they’re starting from step 0 always. That said, of course MSNBC is “better” than Fox, there’s nothing to discuss here.
Interesting observation though - I asked a few times in the UK thread and it seems like they don’t have anything like our 24 hours a day cable news. I know they have Skye TV or whatever but I don’t think they have 5 hours of prime time of Hannities mindfucking pensioners. And yet, their deplorables don’t seem to be any less racist, uninformed, or ready to burn it all down than ours.
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Homework assignment: Watch one hour of Rachel not on a Friday and see if this lines up with what you’re saying here.
Using MSNBC as an example, should we make a distinction between News (daytime after 6am PT and before 1pm PT) and Opinion (Rachel/Lawrence), and NewsyOpinion (Chris Matthews/Chris Hayes/Ari Melber/Brian Williams) for your assessments?
Yea I’ll try to be a bit more substantive.
If cable media truly cared about informing the general population, they would distill major news down to a repeating one-hour loop (like the old Sportscenter before they added all the bullshit segments and talking heads). Run that 24-hours-a-day, update it in part or in whole as events progress. Then cut the number of ads in half, which makes financial sense since you wouldn’t have to pay for all the idiots on screen at any given time.
They won’t do this because they don’t care about informing the general population. They are entertainment and aim for engagement, not information. Outrage is a reliable driver of engagement, hence the increased reliance on outrage-focused segments by the cable media companies. Fox does it with its incredible racism, but others like MSNBC do the same for the low-information #resistance crowd so they can get their jollies reassuring themselves that they are the good side because Trump Is Bad.
The model you described is the old Headline News, which was quite good (kind of like what the old Weather Channel was). I don’t think anything like that exists anymore, and peeps gotta fill a lot of time or viewers change the channel. Imagine SportsCenter running on a 24 hour loop. They would struggle to get viewers for probably 18-20 hours per day. Cable news is certainly monetized now, there’s no doubt about that.
If someone tells me they only watch Ari Melber and Chris Hayes, I’ll think they’re not serious, when you can just feel the tonal change going from either of those shows to Rachel and Lawrence. Both those shows are substantive, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.
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Rachel is an outlier, and more shows should be given the latitude to do what she does in her first 20 minutes (although her topic selection can be quite poor, maybe you disagree). My ideal would be Chris Hayes and Michelle Goldberg talk about what’s happening for 20 minutes without a script. Lawrence is a good watch, the only show I watch for a solid 20-30 minutes most nights, depending on his guests.
Okay I’ll be the one to say it: there’s already a thread for this
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Correct, watching any of them is a massive waste of time
See OP, unless there’s a different one outside of Pontificate.
Chris Hayes’s best work is quite good, as is Ari’s, but they lose a lot of goodwill with some of the guests they put on that are absolute dumpster fires. Chris Matthews’ best work is terrible as is Chuck Toad’s.
I think some of Rachel’s topics aren’t great, but I think history is going to be very kind on her reporting during the Trump presidency. It may not seem like it, but she’s doing a very skillful follow the money trail that is largely about following court cases. Everyone she has on says she’s doing proper analysis of often complex issues. She isn’t down any rabbit holes, and is using publicly available information to connect dots. The problem, of course, is that when people see you connecting the dots they change course, but I think that part of the presidency is over. They aren’t trying to change course anymore, they’re making course on open corruption because they haven’t seen any consequences yet.
We talk about eyeballs here, and the two highest rated shows are Rachel and Lawrence. Lawrence was probably in 3rd or 4th place at the start of the Trump presidency and on the chopping block. Chris Hayes I think was second. Chris’s program has gone way downhill in the last year and a half, and he’s now probably 3rd or 4th on average in ratings. Lawrence’s show has gone way up in quality in the last 2 years, and his ratings reflect that.
Rachel and Lawrence are doing ‘intimate’ opinion shows, and that’s what the audience wants as a way to cut down on the noise. If you need more than 2 talking heads, you’re doing something wrong, and you most often rarely need more than one. MSNBC would do well to copy that model, but they like stuff like the Nicolle Wallace ‘see all the cameras have crane/jib shots and 30 guests per segment’ type stuff.
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Right, these Super Serious Shows would never do something like, I don’t know, promote unhinged conspiracy theories based on a single unconfirmed source and then have to embarrassingly retract their “story” a day later. That just doesn’t happen to Serious News Heavyweights like Rachel or Larry.
And you know how you can tell O’Donnell is a serious newsman? He plays one on fictional TV shows. Seriously, dude is always available to pretend to be a journalist on scripted fictional TV shows and movies, as serious newsmen do. Cronkite did the same thing IIRC.
Man, this is hilarious. Way to buy into that narrative bro.
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Lawrence said he shouldn’t have run with the ‘if true’ story by the end of his show. Trump ranted like a little baby and he did an official retraction of something he already retracted. Yet the story could still be accurate, it just hasn’t been vetted yet. Trump’s tweet this morning suggests his story was accurate because of some language he used in it that was not what Lawrence said at all.
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Lawrence is not a news person, and I don’t know where you ever got that idea. He’s an opinion contributor.
GJGE as usual talking about something you don’t watch and then feeding us your garbage via whatever second hand information you got it from.
this is cnn to me. at least most msnbc shows bring on experts to just discuss the topic instead of argue with a corporate stooge sent there to collect a paycheck
toobin excepting* he’s the only reason to watch cnn imo
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if we’re really ranking best daily cable news shows i think ari melber is the guy. he’s knowledgeable and bright, which allows him to effectively interrogate a guest mid interview with poise. and when there isn’t a guest he keeps the news reporting very factual, he doesn’t delve into what-ifs and what-have-yous, he just moves on because there’s not enough time for all of his hip-hop references
but most fun cable news program, for me, is close between rachel and chris hayes. rachel is always #1 but if chris hayes would just admit he’s a poker nerd he would move into #1, it’d be just that easy, if you’re reading this chris
I think wat ur tryna say is:
But real question here is are you drinking the Andy Wallace or Butch Vig narrative?
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