Cable TV News: Who Succeeds, Who Dumbs It Down

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: (Warning to Rachel: This will sting.)

Any liberal who has blamed the terrible quality of cable news discourse on its domination by conservatives should be reading Bob Somerby’s most recent series of articles on the vapidity of Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, which has become attracted a great deal of attention from liberal elites and media types. The inescapable conclusion of reading Somerby is that the problem with cable news is structural, not ideological. The only way for a pundit to assemble a large enough audience to succeed in prime time is to pander to their audience’s ideological sensibilities and to dumb down their content to the lowest common denominator.

The sad outcome of this process is that Maddow — a former Rhodes scholar — is distorting her own previous statements to make Republicans look bad and devoting long periods of airtime to a running joke about Republican “tea-bagging.” (Keith Olbermann’s show operates at a similar level.)

I’m sure liberals tell themselves that she’s still better than Hannity, O’Reilly, et al. but that’s a pretty low bar. Read all at Brendan Nyhan’s blog and Memorandum.com.

BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS: (Warning to Rachel, Keith and Baier’s new direct MSNBC competitor, the Numbskull Ignoramus Ed (shudder) Schultz: This will sting even more.)

Bret Baier has been covering the White House and national politics for a decade. Yet even he still experiences surreal moments with the most powerful people in Washington.

The anchor of “Special Report with Bret Baier” recently ran into Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff for President Barack Obama. Emanuel told Baier, a former WRAL reporter, he was doing a great job since replacing Brit Hume as anchor on the Fox News Channel program on Jan. 5.

Emanuel told Baier the White House senior staff watches his show every night.

“I said, ‘Oh come on …,’” Baier says. “And he said, ‘Now sometimes we have the volume down, but we watch it every night.’”

Baier found the story funny and gratifying.

“It told me the administration knows we’re there,” he says, “and it’s in their best interest to watch us.”

People are watching.

Baier’s 6 p.m. show attracted twice as many viewers as the CNN and MSNBC shows in the same time slot combined, an average of 2,045,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.

From Jan. 5 to April 6, “Special Report” viewership rose 39 percent over the same period in 2008. In March, it increased 44 percent compared with a year before.

“It has been quite a ride,” Baier says. “The information flow coming out of the nation’s capital, it’s like drinking from a fire hose.

“A lot of it affects everyone. It’s our job to sift through everything and make sure we’re not missing any big stories.” – Read all at the Raleigh News-Observer.

I watch Baier’s show every day too. I wouldn’t miss it. It’s chock full of news — important news! — and the panel during the last 15+ minutes offers insightful, witty opinions.

There’s no “junk” news, no wild conjecture, no playing with factoids, no piecemeal picking of quotes that leave out the full story, and no base, vulgar titillation. It’s solid news at a brisk pace, with some of the best reporters in television providing thoughtful news stories that always teach me something new.

There’s no tingling, pontificating, silly giggling, or cutesy voices (oh, for the love of god, Rachel, stop that — it’s not cute or funny). NBC, hire her a voice coach. Pronto.

And, rightfully, the ratings prove that people prefer substantive news shows to junk.

Ed Schultz’s predecessor, David Shuster on the now-defunct “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” did an alright job and I usually DVR’d the show because sometimes he had great guests like David Corn who actually took Obama to task for his extra-Constitutional power grab, beyond Bush, of a unitary presidency.

Yes, Shuster’s a sexist pig (due to his infamous remark about Chelsea Clinton), but we also have to remember that he did a superb job covering the trial of Scooter Libby and standing up for Valerie Plame Wilson. He grasped the highly complex trial issues, and offered up daily reports that made the arcane legal matters comprehensible to viewers. At least Shuster had a background as a reporter! Why, he was a bona fide newsman!

But Schultz? I got worried when I saw that Schultz was regularly subbing for Shuster. Surely, I thought, MSNBC wouldn’t hire such an ignorant man who can’t get basic facts straight and who is a Johnny-come-lately to the liberal world, having been a Republican most of his life.

Schultz was vicious to Hillary Clinton during the primaries, and saddled up for Obama early on, who he deified so much that he can’t find any fault with the man.

Look at this new regular segment: “Psycho Talk.” When I think of the great anchors and reporters that NBC has had, I’m sickened. Here are a few of those distinguished people:

- David Brinkley
- Chet Huntley
- Bonnie Erbe
- John Chancellor
- Pauline Frederick
- Marvin Kalb
- Frank McGee
- Roger Mudd
- Ed Newman
- Betty Rollin
and on and on.

And this is what NBC News is putting on the air now? Is that swinging what Ed does to get himself revved?

So this is a crass search for the craziest crazy out there and to MOCK them, That’s easy enough to find in any large crowd on every side of the political spectrum (Code Pink, anyone?) . How informative. Tea Party insanity? No, this is just a cheap hatchet job with ZERO effort made by Ed’s producers to find the thousands of normal American citizens who are participating in the events of April 15th.

Chet Huntley and David Brinkley would be deeply ashamed that the once-great NBC News department they anchored would be reduced to this junk “news” pornography. Hell, they wouldn’t recognize this garbage as belonging on any “news” channel, let alone one owned by NBC.

Bret Baier has NOTHING to worry about, does he. His ratings will continue to soar, especially given his latest, um, competition.