![]() They like to use it when making veiled neo-revolutionary threats against "the left" or "city dwellers" or whatever group they feel doesn't show them enough respect at that moment, or to overstate the legitimacy and influence of their movement within the public at large.Īt some point, "half the country" simply evolved within common parlance into shorthand for Trumpists and Republicans in general. It's propaganda based on a purposeful misrepresentation of the fact that about about half of the public who voted in 2016 voted for Trump. "Half the country" is what Trump supporters claim the size of their membership is. Unacceptably low for anyone actually interested in news. If you strip away all the filler content on CNN, you have about 2 minutes worth of content per hour. ![]() ![]() Anyone who cares already knows long before CNN bother to report inbetween commercials, the weather, more commercials, and some fake toothpaste smile nobody yapping on for ten minutes about god knows what interrupted by some reporter reporting absolutely nothing whatsoever happened since the last time they reported the same 40 minutes ago. So, none of these channels ever have much in terms of exclusivity and in fact they rely heavily on online as well for getting their news in the first place. The half life of any exclusive news is basically minutes. The thing is that most things worth reporting are distributed widely via internet based sources. Lots of youtube channels reaching millions of people with each video. Top programs from each of these are getting less viewers than online content from e.g. TV is a losing value proposition in general. Tim Alberta is an excellent writer, by the way it's worth seeking out things he's written. Steven Colbert was right to warn Chris Licht off of taking this position. And, if you scope it down to the demographic ("under 54"), it's even bleaker: all the cable networks have a little over 100k viewers. Two things to note about those numbers: even for Fox, they're infinitesimal (Game of Thrones, which is premium cable content, averaged almost 30x more the NYT has almost 10x more subscribers, there are more subscribers to The Atlantic Monthly, where this article ran, than reliable CNN watchers, &c). There just isn't enough interesting news! There's no opportunity for a "centrist" cable news network, because what drives the constant attention is appeals to partisan agitation.įox News has about 1.5MM viewers, MSNBC close behind with ~1.2MM. You can't make the news a compelling 24/7 product without turning into toxic partisan entertainment, a lesson Fox News learned early and MSNBC has successfully followed on with. Unless it's somehow a loss leader for its parent company, there's really no reason for it to exist.
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