Cable News Drives The Boat

Some bloggers are pushing this report of sagging ratings for the cable nets - in the midst of this election year - as evidence of traditional media decline. I'm not so sure. First of all I think that a lot of people have primary fatigue, though the year-over-year decline suggests there's something bigger at work.

But here's the thing. Cable news impacts the nightly news. A lot of the commentators are the same, and NBC, for example, has pretty much the same staff. As we saw with the ABC debate, the network news isn't exactly better at rising above the fluff. Cable news also impacts the morning news. It's not the viewership so much as who watches, and what happens on the casble nets rises up to that morning agenda. And most important, cable news impacts the LOCAL news. Local news outlets have virtually no budget for stories of national significance. Lots of them re-air things from CNN or NBC News or their national outlet. People like Fox News' Chris Wallace do news hits on morning stations all over the country. So what the cable nets are covering impacts practically all broadcast news outlets. And Americans still get the majority of their news from television, even though that's changing.

And what are the cable nets covering? A pelican getting stuck in a tree, which suggests that the local news is bouncing back on cable news, too.

People are dying in Iraq. You need a credit check to buy gas. Your home belongs to the bank now. But stop the fucking presses, ‘cause there’s a pelican in a freakin’ tree!

Doesn't cost any money to run a local news feed. That's the point here. It's all driven by money. Talking heads are cheap. Re-running local stories is cheap. Journalism costs. They don't want to spend it.