Blog 4: The best news is fake news, or, the blog where I get angry

I blame FOX News. For what? Well, everything I can, really, but mostly for what has happened to television news networks over the past few years. The trend toward sensationalist reporting, a focus on talking-head personalities over actual reporters - a focus on entertainment over news. Certainly, this was always part of the field - CNN's (thankfully) deceased Crossfire was one of the first "news" shows to put the focus on empty arguments and emotional appeal rather than things like, y'know, facts and reason - but it was FOX, with their stable of fatuous non-journalists like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity (not to mention the bubble-headed cheerleaders they hire as female correspondants) that seems to have started the trend. Still, no matter whose fault it is (hint: it's FOX's), that style of "reporting" has, tragically, become the standard for the 24-hour news networks. CNN now has Lou Dobbs (ugh) and Nancy Grace (ugh). They had Glenn Beck (UGH), but he's now at FOX, where he fits right in with O'Reilly and Hannity and Geraldo Rivera and every other one of the network's "journalists" (with the exception of the surprisingly principled Shep Smith). They have become the model. And not to beat up on FOX too much (oh, who am I kidding? That's not possible), but their talking heads consistently, arrogantly proclaim their distance from the oh-so-hateful "mainstream media," apparently ignoring the fact that FOX's ratings are consistently the highest of the news networks. So you could say those claims don't really make a lot of sense. You could also say they're cynical, self-aggrandizing BS, but that would just be rude.

So thank God for Jon Stewart. It was Stewart's legendary appearance on Crossfire (transcript here, video here; I still get chills watching it) that arguably led to the show's cancellation. And I think The Daily Show's greatest strength has always been not how skillfully Stewart skewers politicians for their hypocricy but how he, moreso than any television news personality, holds the 24-hour news networks to the standards they apparently lack the integrity to hold themselves to. As in this clip from The Daily Show, where Stewart takes on CNBC:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
CNBC Financial Advice
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

If you're looking for real, in-depth, honest reporting, it seems like, increasingly, ironically, the best place to turn is the "fake" news show. What does that say about the rest of television news?