Thursday, November 12, 2009

King Replaces Dobbs
Can Straight News Win?

According to this story, John King will take over the CNN time slot left by Lou Dobbs' resignation.  All fine and good, but it does raise the question whether so much "straight news" can succeed against two networks -- Fox and MSNBC -- that play mostly kooks on the left and kooks on the right at the same time (Most of CNN's kooks, now that Dobbs is gone, can be found on Headline News).   I'm thinking not.  If this attempt at a broader penny press approach works, then people get a more, ahem, fair and balanced approach to news.  But all the market trends indicate that's not what the shrinking cable cult news addicts really want.  And when the ideologues completely control the evening cable news, political learning suffers.

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