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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPolitico on cable news controversies: "Are Americans Addicted to Outrage?"
The real reason cable talking heads say offensive things? We like it too much to stop them.
By JEFFREY M. BERRY and SARAH SOBIERAJ
Sarah Sobieraj is associate professor of sociology at Tufts University. They are authors of The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility.
January 03, 2014
Americans tell pollsters they dislike this kind of talk and believe it degrades our political system. But the audience data tell a different story: In fact, Americans find this type of political commentary quite compelling. By our calculation, part of an analysis we did for our new book, The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility, the aggregate daily audience for such content is roughly 47 million people. In a cluttered media landscape where advertisers have a sea of choices, anxious television and radio producers hungry for revenue have sought new ways to break through the clutterto stop the channel surfers as they peruse other optionsand reach audiences. And the popular agent provocateurs of political talk media not only do the jobthey also do it relatively cheaply. (Consider that CNNs administrative expenses make up about twice as much of its budget share as at Fox or MSNBC.) As a result, America has developed a robust and successful Outrage Industry that makes money from calling political figures idiots, or even Nazis.
The basic business model encourages hosts and bloggers to court controversy as a way of generating higher ratings (and, thus, more advertising dollars). This weeks uproar over Harris-Perrys treatment of Romneys grandchild is illustrative. Harris-Perry subsequently apologized, but while she and the network may regret having offended the Romneys, its doubtful they regret the fallout for her program. The episode has garnered a good deal of attention in the mainstream press, putting Harris-Perry square in the national spotlight. Unless she loses her job (as Bashir ultimately did), the controversy could prove more a blessing than a curse, because carefully negotiated shock is profitable.
Consider that Fox News Channels 2012 profit (admittedly in an election year) neared $1 billion, up 11 percent from the previous year, according to SNL Kagan, the media and communications analysis firm. MSNBCs $203 million in profits, while much smaller, was up 4 percent from the previous year. The media holdings of Clear Channel Communications, the largest owner and syndicator of talk radio, are also highly profitable (though talk radio over-expanded and is now undergoing something of a shakeout). Only outrage blogs fail to make much in the way of money; few attract significant amounts of advertising, and they instead tend to be subsidized by their writers or owners, whose labor keeps these blogs going. The hope of many bloggers is to gain enough notoriety so that their writers can become political figures in their own right, like bloggers Erick Erickson or Michelle Malkin, who are now frequent guests onyou guessed itcable TV.
Full: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/angry-politics-americans-addicted-101735_full.html
elleng
(130,156 posts)and I think it began with Watergate. Since then, journalism deteriorated into what it is now, NOT-journalism.
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)don't really believe the shit they spew.
If Republican constituants could actually hear what these people say about them behind closed doors there would be a whole lot less Republicans in America.
Dread Pirate Roberts
(1,896 posts)Its just formulaic. Too many similarities between them, especially the right wing hate mongers, to be coincidence. From Father Charles Coughlin to Bob Grant to Rush, they perfected the art of the carny sale of conservative talking points. We could probably get someone from DU to start making the same pitches and become a beloved conservative commentator-except their tongue might turn to fire and their head would explode. However, it would expose the charade!
Mariana
(14,849 posts)Not just the Conservative/Republican ones, either.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)Martin and Melissa.
No mention of Limbaugh? Beck? Palin? etc.?
alp227
(31,962 posts)As well as blogger Jim Hoft. It even has an example of Lumpy:
spanone
(135,637 posts)so lesser and lesser stories become 'breaking news'
2naSalit
(86,071 posts)addiction to the adrenaline rush and therefore, anything that stimulates it. Anger, outrage, rage, hatred and fear all seem to do the trick for a lot of folks.
madrchsod
(58,162 posts)they have no room to talk...
KT2000
(20,544 posts)and it makes otherwise bored and sedentary people feel alive and important.
They need the daily fix.
There are all kinds of adrenalin junkies. Hate really fill people up with it.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)LisaLynne
(14,554 posts)legitimately outraged about, on both 'sides'. I mean, if you are a racist, homophobic misogynist, the world ain't going your way overall. If you care about the environment, equality, and peace, it's sort of the same.
OTOH, I was thinking about the weather reporting and ... I mean, yeah, we are getting a blast of dangerous arctic air, but it's not the end of the freaking world. However, they are acting like it is. And it happened last year, with the snowpocalypse. So, yeah ... I think there is something in the tone of the reporting that seems a little OTT.