Anna Nicole and Cable News

by Paul Gessing

Watching cable news makes you stupid. There, I said it. I have previously expressed my preference for The Jon Stewart Show over the offerings on cable, but the recent coverage of the death of Anna Nicole takes the cake. Cable “news” is absolutely obsessed with Smith while they can’t quite seem to figure out whether the Iraq War is important or not.

On the day of Smith’s death, according to the Center for American Progress, NBC's Nightly News devoted 14 seconds to Iraq compared to 3 minutes and 13 seconds to Anna Nicole. CNN referenced Anna Nicole 522% more frequently than it did Iraq. MSNBC was even worse – 708% more references to Anna Nicole than Iraq. Of course the networks’ ratings for the Smith death were double their usual, so what are we to make of this?

We need to take a step back here because the problem has been around a lot longer than Anna Nicole – Remember OJ Simpson? – and it is symptomatic of our society. The fact is that television is entertainment, period. Television is about images and colors and attractive people. Even when you think you are watching news, the fact is that entertainment is really the core product.

Think back to the early days of the Iraq War with all of the retired generals and their high-tech maps, the flashy imagery, and of course all of those embedded reporters. If you were to break down how much of those segments were meant to entertain as opposed to inform – especially in light of the fact that so much of what was accepted as “fact” was not necessarily so – I’d say that 90 percent was entertainment and 10 percent was “news and information.”

Without sounding like an advertisement for the newspaper industry, it is newspapers and reading that actually provide information. Sure, Mark Twain once said, “If you do not read a newspaper, you are uninformed. If you do read a newspaper, you are misinformed,” but the key word is “inform.” With a little common sense, not to mention access to news sources like the Internet; it is easy to stay truly informed on the real issues of the day. It is my job to be informed about politics and current events, but the extent of my cable news consumption is Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

Ultimately, what cable news provides is a mirror with which we can realize a greater understanding of our society, with all its warts. While Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs, and Sean Hannity spew their disinformation and warped world views, not to mention the “reporters” who break into scheduled programming with an urgent update about the contents of Anna Nicole’s refrigerator, the American people eat it up like so much candy.

So, can anything be done or are we stuck with cable news pandering to the lowest common denominator? That is a tough one. Clearly, the cable news organizations operate in a relatively free market (the FCC aside, they are all competing for viewers and market share). Also, since it is very easy to get the latest dirt on Anna Nicole and a lot less easy to do in-depth analysis of the issues surrounding weapons of mass destruction and the false intelligence used to justify the Iraq War, the incentive for change is missing.

For lack of better options, at this time it seems that simply ignoring the cable news idiots is the best option. There is another “dream” option, however. After all, before Rupert Murdoch came along, it was widely held that cable news tilted to the left. Perhaps some wealthy free liberal type like John Mackey will come along and decide that a market niche has been left unfilled. Then and only then in my opinion – when someone comes along and shifts the cable news paradigm – will cable news perform the dual roles of entertaining as well as informing the American citizenry. I’m not holding my breath, though.

Paul Gessing is a senior editor for The Free Liberal.