Most people by this point know either subconsciously or consciously
the main reasons for why CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News regulars act
like a group of preppy high school girls. Let's briefly list 4 common
reasons before moving on to the underlying explanation.
1) The nature of their work as charismatic and believable presenters of information rather than experts.
It is key to mention that the separation between 24 hour cable networks
and brief "serious" 6 PM broadcasts on basic cable is disappearing. It
used to be that the evening news audience demographic was numerically
dominated by the group of elderly depression era females. This explained
the need for senior citizens like Dan Rather who was ideal marriage
material for the widowed viewers and delivered the authority of a small
town doctor. To this day a doctor is shown by polls as the most
respected wage laborer whose opinion is considered the most truthful (it
makes doctors natural lead characters in TV drama series and movies).
However this demographic is dying off and being replaced by baby boomer
women (greater female life expectancy always tilts corporate marginal
profit seeking) who respect Katie Couric's professional achievement and
ability to look good at her age.
2) Support by biggest media
corporations of Reagan's efforts to reduce funding for department of
education (either through cheerleading it or tacit support from
silence). 40 year olds watching the news on TV today were directly
affected by the across the board reduction in quality of schooling.
Television and newspapers thus have to use less big words and their
writers are increasingly relying on baby speak, puns, and outright
prepackaged talking points (Gretchen Carlson playing dumb to keep her
job is one extreme example of this). Shorter attention span is not the
cause but the social symptom. This directly feeds into 3)
3)
MSM responding to an Australian tabloid oligarch's invasion of United
States with headlong rush towards turning news into entertainment.
Of course this would have happened even without the accelerating
influence of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation conglomerate. The aging
of current TV demographic is permanent since mostly those remain who are
unable to master the use of internet two way transmission medium. Since
the audience is increasingly represented by rural senior citizens who
were failed by the education drives in the 50s and 60s, the
intensification of circus style hysterical entertainment as seen on the
radio is inevitable in the short term. Murdoch's influence must again be
mentioned however. Newstartainment ( trademarked =] ) saw a publicly
visible deepening split between internationalist media oligarchs (who
encourage globalization since USA is not essential to their base of
operations) and nationalist media oligarchs who use their media asset
influence to help out USA based heavy industry. NBC Universal can be
said to be an example of a nationalist oligarch mouthpiece since it is
owned by General Electric (which is reliant on selling real tangible
items like engine parts to US military and government organs). News
Corporation
of course is not as reliant on the well being of United States
military-industrial complex so its assets like Fox News can be extra
irresponsible with their newstartainment. From the financial perspective
it is better strategy for GE's bottom line to support nationalist
Democratic party wing of the oligarchy (since better educated/healthier
peasants allow US based corps to better compete abroad). That is why
MSNBC leans towards democratic millionaires and their businesses. The
fact that Fox News was emulated points less to its success than to a
transition of formerly US tied corporations towards a more global
status. For more information on who the top 10 owners of media clusters
are, here is a handy chart (warning: This is from 2002 and the industry
got more consolidated and monolithic since then. Use it to get the
thrust of the idea).
4) Losing ad revenue to the internet since
television news (and TV programming in general) did not live up to its
promise of raising human consciousness as envisioned by the first head
of the FCC. The internet serves as a type of American glasnost while
television serves as a way to sell state propaganda and mass produced
TV drama garbage at home and abroad. That is easily recognizable.
Getting young people's trust back (to keep going long term as old people
die) is now almost impossible and the road of least resistance is to
intensify the circus. Some young people watch the news and MTV just to
laugh at how terrible it is (that still is a mild boost to ad revenue).
News "anchors" themselves do not come into contact with relevant
information much since their networks have actively cut recruitment of
journalistic investigative talent. Since it is cheaper to analyze second
hand information with talking heads than hire sufficient numbers of
understimulated human explorers (and pay for their plane tickets, hotel
accommodation, security, etc), news anchors come less and less into real
contact with knowledgeable experts. Ridiculous cowards like Wolf
Blitzer for example, do not get hits to their self esteem as much from
interaction with resident stay at home talking heads than with old
school journalist data fiends like Michael Ware. To be fair, as Fox News
anchors show, there is a lot of self censorship and dumbing down to
remain on the job.
***drum roll***
And the underlining explanation is....
National news anchors and pundits are members of the wealthiest 5% or 1% of the population.
Even
if they started out poor (which is increasingly becoming unlikely as
key people in the conglomerate hierarchy flood these simple job openings
with their children) the long cut throat climb to the top irreparably
changed them. The laughing playboys on TV are completely insulated from
vast majority of the problems that Americans are facing (except of
course problems of taxes on income and capital gains and regulations on
financial gambling). Whether they work for Fox, CNN, MSNBC, many of them
are good friends and are always on the look out to jump ship to another
network to bump up their salary. People like Anderson Cooper, Lou
Dobbs, Sean Hannity would never be caught dead riding a piece of third
world joyride called the NYC subway.
To them life in America is
great and getting better all the time. Every day is just an ego
bolstering practice of either driving from luxurious suburbs or being
driven to a place where people put make up on them, where they see their
friends, and where they talk to some senior citizen
politicians/celebrities (who are naturally as insulated). They sit down
and chit chat about the problems of places like Detroit ( which for all
intensive purposes is as foreign and distant as cities in Africa are).
They are goofy and full of giggles not just because they are
professional entertainers but because the anchors that elderly people
get their "news" from are but middle aged preppy high school girls on
the equivalent of a fashion show.
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