The Template for Cable News Programs
By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO−Once upon a time, television news covered a spectrum of international stories in a 30 minute time slot. Now there is a template for cable news programs aired 24 hours per day.
- Mass Shootings and natural catastrophes preempt whatever else was scheduled to be broadcast. Either drone footage or smartphone video of the events is repeated every 30 minutes. These scenes are followed by interviews with traumatized survivors, bystanders, or families of victims who predictably express how devastated they are to strangers who poke microphones in their pained faces. Next criminologists or meteorologists explain the phenomena and prescribe how damages or fatalities could be lessened in the future. Finally, Democratic politicians call for preventive legislation and regulation; whereas Republican politicians offer their thoughts and prayers and blame the disasters or massacres respectively on weather cycles or mental illness. It is always too soon to jump to any conclusions.
- A panel of pundits and politicians discuss whether Trump is amoral, narcissistic, nativist, racist, or sexist. Depending on the network, they either reply all of the above or that these charges are false, slanderous, socialistic, and un-American. [The latter happens on the channel named after an animal that shouldn’t be guarding the henhouse.]
- Will Trump be impeached? The same panels castigate or champion Nancy Pelosi for sparing the United States from enduring a divisive and doomed proceeding or emboldening the President to do even worse things in his second term. The real action will only come when the courts remove redactions from incriminating documents and compel the testimony of witnesses protected by the President’s invocation of executive privilege.
- Anchors encourage the Democratic candidates for president to make the case for their stances on issues by criticizing the positions taken by their rivals. They spend hours analyzing polls while conceding that it is too early to rely on them or their faulty methodology. On the channel that rhymes with box, anchors discredit such proposals by associating them with the Squad.
- Occasionally, an important story will break from another country. It might be broadcast if it is a slow news day. But then again, how good would that be for ratings among audiences that believe America comes first?
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Baron is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com. San Diego Jewish World points out to new readers that this column is satire, and nothing herein should be taken literally.