America Is Too Dumb For TV News

I found this Rolling Stone article, America Is Too Dumb for TV News, to be an absolutely fascinating read. The root of the issue that the article tackles is an obvious one, news networks are designed to sell ads, not create think pieces.

It's our fault. We in the media have spent decades turning the news into a consumer business that's basically indistinguishable from selling cheeseburgers or video games. You want bigger margins, you just cram the product full of more fat and sugar and violence and wait for your obese, over-stimulated customer to come waddling forth.

The old Edward R. Murrow, eat-your-broccoli version of the news was banished long ago. Once such whiny purists were driven from editorial posts and the ad people over the last four or five decades got invited in, things changed. Then it was nothing but murders, bombs, and panda births, delivered to thickening couch potatoes in ever briefer blasts of forty, thirty, twenty seconds.

This latest election cycle is the perfect example of this sound nugget culture. A politician says something outlandish and, even if it's racist and wrong, they only get their feet held to the fire momentarily because there are more nuggets coming soon that keep viewers tuned in. Audiences aren't interested in actual facts or having watchdogs that keep people honest.

It's not a new problem but the article articulates it extremely well.