Indeed. However, news (to me) implies facts and as we've seen, news organs are perfectly within their legal rights to lie to us. Left, right, center, doesn't really enter into it. Part of me feels their should be a visible disclaimer whenever we enter the realm of punditry but I am not naive enough to think that would actually happen.
You seem like a smart enough guy, are you just making this argument out of principle? Because I think everyone I know who watches any cable news programs knows they are getting entertainment style news. Even my parents who are in their 70's know this. Surely you can watch the news and discern if their is a bias or if something is being presented disingenuously right? I for one hate this legal disclaimer bullshit on everything telling me to be careful and watch out, etc. So I could do away with all the disclaimer bullshit.
Unfortunately, almost half the population is of below average intelligence. While most of the people I know can easily discern for themselves fact from spin, a good chunk of our population cannot. This stupid chunk, for lack of a better way of describing it, needs that disclaimer imho. You and I...not so much. When I was an instructor in the Marines I was trained to teach to the "lowest common denominator". In other words, gear the instruction to the dumbest person in the room so as to better ensure understanding by all. Sure, that would upset the others who felt the instruction was maddeningly slow, but this method all but guarenteed that everyone learned the material. The goal was to make things "idiot proof". As an example, take a look at an M18Claymore mine...it actually says "Front Toward Enemy". Idiot proof. America has quite few.
Well, of course half the population is below average. LOL. Not sure if that was a joke or not. If this makes you feel any better, Fox news, which dominates the ratings, still only peaks out at 6 million viewers a night, that's less then 2% of the population! And MSNBC and CNN have less then that combined. So all in all we are talking about less then 5% of the entire US population is watching cable news and I would beg that most of them probably fall in the above average intelligence bracket and probably lean towards white collar working professionals. So this whole thing is kind of mute.
It was part joke and part testament to our shared reality . Now, the numbers you cite are interesting. Not sure that it makes me feel any better but do these numbers reflect the same viewers or different viewers? In other words, do the same 6 million people watch Fox every night? Not sure it's possible to realistically extrapolate the percentage of the population that tunes in from your numbers. However, it would seem plausible that the reason so few do tune in, is because they know it's bs. Seems to me the cable news outlets would serve their own interests better by fostering a culture of honesty, rather than spin.
No, I think the reason they don't watch cable news is the same reason they don't want the network news and the same reason they don't read the newspapers and the same reason they don't watch debates. I'm getting this funny feeling you are really out of touch with this country. LOL. Most people are either watching sports, dancing with the stars or how I met your mother. Seriously, I hang out with a pretty intellectual college educated crowd. And I'm the ONLY one of them that watches the news. The only one!!!! You might be stuck in 1970. LOL.
Says the shit for brains homo who blew up a fake $100 journal, admits to paper trading and deleted a trade entry post after it went against him. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=221311&perpage=30 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=218121&perpage=30&pagenumber=6 http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=218121&perpage=30&pagenumber=4
============== Excellant points. With two sides [or points of view]; FOX news has done pretty well with that plan , in the news business. Eight[8] going in the same direction; with declining volume maybe a clue.