Monday, December 24, 2007

No News is Good News?

I came across this graphic this morning, which really tells the story of the decline and fall of television news. Check out "30 Minutes with CNN." What is worse, there are other "news" stations that are worse, having mostly replaced factual reporting with talking heads screaming at each other.


(click on image for larger version)

With all of the news now ad-supported, the key financial goal of the "news stations" has become to keep viewers watching as long as possible so they see as many commercials as possible. Sadly, Americans would rather be entertained than informed, and so departed the news, international first, and then almost everything else.

It would seem to me that there MUST be an opportunity for a next-gen CNN with more factual reporting, even if we real news wonks have become a tiny niche...