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Even in the early 90s news started shifting towards our modern incarnation. CNN was considered hard news in the 80s, but that changed around the time of the Per
by taude 3y ago
Even in the early 90s news started shifting towards our modern incarnation. CNN was considered hard news in the 80s, but that changed around the time of the Persian Gulf war and Wolf Blitzer becoming the Scud-Stud, and all the other shows like Cross-Fire becoming news-er-tainment (or whatever the proper industry term is), etc...
- JohnFen 3y ago> CNN was considered hard news in the 80s I blame CNN for much of the state of news today. TV news has always been poor, but before CNN proved otherwise, news was not something that was considered a profit-maker. Once CNN showed it can make money, then the profit maximalization began in earnest, and with that came the descent into news-as-entertainment. That started well before the gulf war.
- cbsmith 3y agoOh, that goes way back before CNN and cable, or even TV. As an aside, 99% invisible had a pretty good podcast on how radio (which delivers news to more Americans -and is trusted more- than TV) content has changed over the years. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-divided-dial/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-divided-dial/ The change has been systemic, and that change shaped CNN more than the other way around.
- xattt 3y agoAn oft-forgotten movie is the Network (1976) that predicts the rise of activist news hosts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_(1976_film)