Cliché Watch

Pundit Harrowed by 60-Hour Cable News Binge

Benjamin F. Carlson 12 Views Jan 18, 2010
For the sake of posterity, respected reporter Walter Shapiro subjected himself to 60 hours of cable news. On Sunday he resurfaced, gasping for the dead-tree New York Times. In his concluding reflection, he condemned cable news as stale, cliché-ridden, and toxic to American intelligence. Which, unfortunately, is a pretty hackneyed way to cap off a week-long ordeal. (James Fallows, among others, handled the subject ably in his book "Breaking the News" and this Atlantic article--both over a decade old.)

Shapiro, fortunately, has a sparkling writing style, so he gives the old idea a fresh coat of paint. Here's his conclusion:
At the end of my long cable news nightmare, I realized that there is a societal problem more serious than the curare-tipped ideological invective that is such a prime-time ratings generator for Fox News and MSNBC. And that is that - despite rare exceptions like Fareed Zakaria - cable TV is a major contributor to the dumbing down of the American voter.

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