The Cable Effect
I got to the office a bit before 9AM today and within 20 minutes I felt incredibly agitated. I was pissed off. I also had a feeling of despair about the prospects for health reform. I was mad, and I also felt helpless. What was wrong? Was it just a bad case of the Mondays? Regrets for being back in the cubicle after so many weeks on the road?
Then it hit me. I wasn’t unplugged by any means over the past three weeks. I kept blogging and kept reading blogs. I read the newspapers and I even watched the news on television. But what I watched was CNN International and BBC World News. There’s a world of difference between those networks and even the relatively staid domestic version of CNN. And at the office they had the sound on for Fox News. Bill Hemmer & co. were spinning half-truths, deceptions, and outright falsehoods at a staggering rate. Meanwhile you could see frenetic action on MSNBC and CNN and if I felt like really making myself dizzy could even follow the action on closed caption.
It makes you think about the strange influence that daytime cable news has on American politics. The three networks combined have an aggregate daytime audience of roughly zero. But even though the audience, looked at nationally, amounts to rounding error the networks are hugely popular among the tiny number of people who work in professional politics. Just like traders have CNBC and Bloomberg on in their offices, political operatives are constantly tuned in to what’s happening on cable news. The result is a really bizarre hothouse scenario in which people are basically watching . . . well . . . nothing, but they’re riveted to it. How things “play” on cable news is considered fairly important even though no persuadable voters are watching it. And cable news’ hyper-agitated style starts to infect everyone’s frame of mind, making it extremely difficult for everyone to forget that the networks have huge incentives to massively and systematically overstate the significance of everything that happens.
At any rate, it’s good to be back home but the slower pace and more relaxed and substantive style of BBC and CNN International is something I’ll miss.
55 Responses to “The Cable Effect”
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October 13th, 2009 at 10:04 am
I cannot stand to watch cable news. It is worse than no information at all, and it just gets my blood pressure up. Interestingly enough, I find cable news to be the worst part of air travel these days; all these airports have TVs blaring CNN away at max volume.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Just like traders have CNBC and Bloomberg on in their offices
Professional raders do not listen to CNBC. Bloomberg maybe (though their terminals are more likely), CNBC no. CNBC is a channel designed to suck day traders into the market to make them easy pickin’s.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Ugh. I actually manage to watch basically no cable news at all in my life … except when I have to travel. You can’t go through an airport without being subjected to it at every turn, and it absolutely drives me crazy.
You have cable news running with the audio turned up at your office? My condolences. I couldn’t stand working in that kind of environment.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:16 am
A very timely post, the morning after the Daily Show eviscerated CNN’s lack of fact checking any guest who ever appears on their channel. 11 1/2 minutes of pure assault from Jon Stewart.
Even more timely, your mentioning CNN International – a news channel so good that it actually carries… the Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:17 am
The dichotomy between CNN domestic and CNN International underscores the fact that domestic US news reporting organizations, for the most part, treat Americans as if they’re developmentally disabled toddlers. It’s Pikachu news, focused on sharp graphics and catch phrase of the day, whereas CNN International reports a wider range of news in language that a high schooler can comprehend.
The only Situation in Wolf Blitzer’s room is the dumbing down of America with flashy chyrons and breaking news alerts.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:18 am
But even though the audience, looked at nationally, amounts to rounding error the networks are hugely popular among the tiny number of people who work in professional politics.
They should just read the National Enquirer instead!
And cable news’ hyper-agitated style starts to infect everyone’s frame of mind, making it extremely difficult for everyone to forget that the networks have huge incentives to massively and systematically overstate the significance of everything that happens.
Perhaps that is why the policies we have received from our supposed fabulous government have steadily worsened over the last 20 years.
And why people believe they’re going to be raped by sharks and then sentenced to disassembly for organ donation by a panel of government doctors if they go to the 7-11 for coffee.
max
['Turn off the boob tube Matthew! It ain't helpin' none!']
October 13th, 2009 at 10:22 am
The question is why do these professional people who actually know better than anyone the actual process are so fascinated by this chatter.
Could it be that the prospect of pleasing or appearing in the media, no matter how small, is actually a motivating force? I often wondered why so many notable politicians were willing to appear on Da Ali G show.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:23 am
They only become problematic when WaPo or the Times pick up their bullshit. You’d think the Times in particular would want to keep them as separate as possible.
Then again, when “mainstream” outlets are owned by the same people that own cable channels, their interest is in merging the two.
We’re just fucked.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:27 am
From what I have read (but not experienced directly) it might be even more enlightening to get your news from Al Jazeera for a couple of weeks.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Cable news is so Monika-Lewinsky/Elian-Gonzalez era.
Next Matt will tell us he’s watching the McLaughlin Group
October 13th, 2009 at 10:31 am
CNN International is proof that CNN domestic is deliberately stupid.
(And Sky News is proof that a Murdoch-owned news network can be something other than a political propaganda machine.)
I’m not going to do the holier-than-though “I cancelled cable” thing, but being unable to watch cable news is frankly, good for one’s mental health. The fact that a few hundred thou wonks and pols do watch it is an unhealthy thing.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I think a non-trivial amount of the process-related griping the White House and its allies gets from certain otherwise sympathetic members of the pundit class is essentially attributable to the fact that former have managed to keep the cable news chatter in appropriate perspective.
By the way, I wonder if Matt is aware that some of the same marketing pressures apply to the commercialized portion of the blogosphere.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Fortunately, young people don’t get their news from these kinds of sources. For those working in the kinds of sources they do use, the question to ask yourself is ‘What have you done to ruin cable “news’” brand today?’
October 13th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Speaking of nothing for content, does anyone watch local news? I go to the gym nightly, a bank of televisions facing various cardio machines. Invariably some blue-haired person has one of them tuned to local news. Usually in front of or adjacent to the only elliptical or treadmill available to me. Thank god, (well, someone) for I-Pod. The other day I was being critical of local news with another patron and tossed off the comment it was so inane it would lead the 6PM broadcast (in a metro area of one million-plus) with a story of someone plowing a car into someone’s home and crashing into the bedroom. We glance up at the TV, it’s just past 6 and the news is starting. You guessed it! A car sitting in someone’s bedrooom, local reporter earnestly explaining how important it is for 1 million people to know Gladys Crampton was awakened from her slumber by a wayward Buick! Cue scratching my eyes out. Absolutely fricking worthless. Garage fires, water skiing squirrels, bimbos in tight pencil skirts telling me about killer fog in tomorrow morning’s commute forecast. Junior high school track meet drama. Some goddamn bank downtown is getting sandblasted. WTF? Tune in tomorrow for a 5 part undercover story on scam driveway sealer crews. 5 parts? And there are people glued to this as if it was news of Jesus’ return to earth. Just shoot me……
October 13th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Matt, read what you have written at the top there. I get the impression that you have identified something that is poisoning your system (and a whole class of folks) and yet you seem to be advocating a stoic approach which allows the poisoning to carry on as if it were some elemental force that you have no control over.
Here is my (rhetorical) question: Are you going to reduce your intake or find some way of getting mediated access so that you don’t carry on poisoning yourself?
October 13th, 2009 at 10:45 am
I love the way you just malign Fox News. I look at CNN the same way every time they cover the middle east – they might as well wave PA flags, they’re so biased. And CNN intl (yes, I have watched it, frequently) is even worse that way.
It all depends on which part of the political spectrum you come from.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:46 am
News is the new sugar (in other words, a legal yet harmful addiction).
October 13th, 2009 at 10:55 am
It all depends on which part of the political spectrum you come from.
Matt was making a point about the nature of the coverage that applies to all the domestic cable news networks, not just Fox.
That said, it is simply true that Fox is uniquely blatant in its biases, not ideologically per se but rather in favor of the Republican Party. I’ll never forget (very briefly) watching Fox and seeing them promo one of their weekend business programs, “Bulls & Bears”. The promo was (and this is close to an exact quote), “This week on Bulls & Bears: Why are the Dems against owning stocks?” Or there was the time Bulls & Bears had on Ann Coulter to give her stock picks. And so on.
That pretty much tells you all you need to know about Fox.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Oh, and I completely forgot about Bulls & Bears claiming the turnaround in the stock markets starting in March was a “Tea Party Rally”. Great stuff.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:59 am
In all the cable news and other reporting on
the Baucus bill, even Daily Kos
takes until today to report, that…
actually it might be better if it does NOT EVEN GET OUT OF THE FINANCE COMMITTEE.
And we have cared about it for the last six months?
Maybe all you smart people already knew this.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:00 am
[...] felt like really making myself dizzy could even follow the action on closed caption. more … Matthew Yglesias The Cable Effect I agree with him! I noticed it last week, we were in Canada and my news was CBC and The Globe [...]
October 13th, 2009 at 11:05 am
My wife and I no longer watch US TV news at all, for the very reasons you mention. But thank goodness in the DC area we have MHz Networks TV which provides foreign TV news sources such as Al Jazeera, among many others. Why not watch these instead?
October 13th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Did anyone catch last night’s daily show?
Jon Stewart took CNN to task for (i) running a fact check on SNL’s spoof of Obama, where [SNL] jokingly claimed, that Obama has accomplished absolutly nothing; (ii) while neglecting to fact check BS spewed by politicians on CNN.
I found it funny and sad at the same time. But, as MY’s experience with CNN International illustrates, CNN does know how to do the news, but for some reason, CNN domestic, is just filled with stupid ass touch screens, holograms, and “let’s see what they’re saying on twitter and facebook.”
It’s not like CNN International is as dry as the NewsHour or Nova, yet, I don’t know why CNN doesn’t deploy more of a CNN International format in the US. It doesn’t have to be “interational” focused, to use the CNN International format.
Is it perhaps because CNN thinks the average American is “too dumb” to want the nuance of longer stories? Or do they think Americans all have short attention spans? I don’t know what it is, but it’s pretty bad, just how much Cable News misinforms the viewing public. And I’m not speaking of just Fox News, which operates in Bad Faith; but even most of MSNBC (save for Maddow and Olbermann some of the time) and CNN, are just as bad.
So, yah MY, I’m pretty angry too. But it could be worse, you could in Afghanistan.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:19 am
[...] Yglesias points out the strange effect that cable news has on politics: It makes you think about the strange influence that daytime cable [...]
October 13th, 2009 at 11:21 am
At the time of the build-up to the Gulf War, I had access to the BBC, CNN international, and through Armed Forces Radio, CNN America. It was clear that the difference between the two CNNs was that CNN international was competing with the BBC and CNN America was competing with Fox. It came on me that the solution to this idiocy was to fully fund public radio and TV. If public media were subsidized by a tax on commercial media at a rate which give them an equal budget with the commercial media, I believe that the competition would change from Fox vs. CNN to every network trying not to be obliterated by public media. With good reporters on public media consistently getting the scoops, insiders would feel silly going to Sean Hannity for comment.
This would only work if the public media were set up to be completely immune to influence the way the BBC trust allows the BBC to operate. Public Radio got promptly defunded in the eighties when they unearthed a huge scandal that would have ended Bush political influence if it had had a wider audience.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Matt,
I thought you worked at the Center for American Progress. Why would CAP be tuned to Fox News? Is it “opposition research” or masochism?
Turn the morons OFF!
What they say has no coherent meaning in English or any other language. You and your co-workers are shortening your lives for nothing. By your own account the Nielsens for cable are pathetic; the only people who watch them are obsessives.
Turn the morons OFF!
If CAP feels it needs a news feed, use CNNI or BBC. Or (gasp) Al Jazeera from time to time.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:30 am
The three networks combined have an aggregate daytime audience of roughly zero.
Sadly I don’t think that’s true. I find it very disturbing how often I run into Fox News out in public – at breakrooms in large corporations, at gyms in the morning, restaurants, airport bars, etc. These messages and soundbites seep into the public consciousness, and in a particularly insidious way since most people are not paying close attention or thinking critically about the messages they’re getting.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:45 am
“I love the way you just malign Fox News. I look at CNN the same way every time they cover the middle east – they might as well wave PA flags, they’re so biased.”
I would like to highlight this quote for posterity, just in case anyone here is considering ever taking anything James Robertson says seriously ever again.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:51 am
How things “play” on cable news is considered fairly important even though no persuadable voters are watching it.
Who, exactly, considers it important? Surely people who get elected to Congress typically have some sense of the numbers in their own districts, don’t they? I mean, I had always assumed that among other things they have access to quality polling. So, chill out, Yglesias. Bill Hemmer’s lies aren’t going to kill healthcare. And dammit, change the channel.
October 13th, 2009 at 11:52 am
28: Good point. Thank you JR for clarifying things for us.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
There are thirteen references to news networks in YG’s post and most of them are negative. FOX is mentioned once.
Indeed, James Robertson is disposable.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I dont know how anyone intelligent can watch the idiocy of any of the cable news networks. Fox may be the worst offender, but the others are pretty awful as well….call me a snob I listen to NPR during the day on iTunes, and for more politics I actually prefer the floor debate in the House and Senate on Cspan to the various models pretending to be journalists giggling with each other over some nonsense story.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
I assume that CNN’s domestic format is less expensive to produce and gets more domestic attention. Their international format appeals to an audience of viewers who simply is not going to put up with the crap that CNN broadcasts in the USA. CNN knows that their domestic format is something that serious news watchers abroad would never put up with, so they give them something more serious and informative. There is not much upside to showing CNN-International and quite possibly puts CNN at risk of leaving themselves open to a cable-news sh*tstorm in which something broadcast on CNN-I ends up being claimed to be “supporting America’s enemies” or some such thing.
Your workplace should turn it all off. What could CAP possibly gain from keeping cable news on all day? You all have internet access on your computers, right? If breaking news happens, you’ll hear about it.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Going through a phase of watching cable news all day made me realize that there is only about 2 hours of news that occurs in a given day, leaving the networks with 22 hours of space to fill.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
[...] the blogs or The Daily Show with regards to fact checking and meaningful analysis of the news. Matthew Yglesias, returning from Europe where he became spoiled by the superior BBC and CNN International newscasts, [...]
October 13th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I don’t know why CNN doesn’t deploy more of a CNN International format in the US.
They experimented with it, simulcasting an hour of the CNNi feed at midday eastern. It got pre-empted more and more — often when there was a high-speed chase to follow or some other trivial shit — and eventually got dumped.
Format-wise, I have to sigh and wonder whether “here’s what people are twatting about on Twitter” is perfect lowest-common-denominator television for people watching cablenews at 3pm.
Going through a phase of watching cable news all day made me realize that there is only about 2 hours of news that occurs in a given day, leaving the networks with 22 hours of space to fill.
I’d say there’s more, but that’s based upon having BBC World Service radio, where you’ll get blocks that offer deeper focus and analysis on the bits of the globe. Not 24 hours’ worth, though.
There’s about 2 hours of “all the news that’s fit for cablenews”, but since they’re dealing with an audience that either dips in and out, or remains glued like addicts to the damn thing, it’s repeated and padded and spread out. (Local news bulletins, without Pricktease Weather and other fluff, could be done in five or ten minutes.)
October 13th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
I just returned from about 10 days in France. Except for a couple of minutes of SkyNews in Paris, I was totally out of the cable news loop. Pure bliss. Upon return, I caught up with the news, checked blogs and consciously chose not to plug back into the cable news frenzy. I’m finding that choice has resulted in a real sense of calm. I’m still pretty well informed, but the frenzy is gone. And I’m not feeling any urge to return to my old ways.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Going through a phase of watching cable news all day made me realize that there is only about 2 hours of news that occurs in a given day, leaving the networks with 22 hours of space to fill.
Yes! Before canceling cable service, my wife and I wondered if we would miss 24 hour cable news. What if something major happened?
When something really major happens, the regular networks interrupt their regular programming to bring you the news. I get most of my news from the radio and from checking a few internet sites. I don’t miss the repetitive cable news channels at all. And now there are some worldview news channels we pick up free over-the-air. Plus local news for weather and stuff.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
But even though the audience, looked at nationally, amounts to rounding error the networks are hugely popular among the tiny number of people who work in professional politics.
You’re making an excellent argument for ignoring those people.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
They should just read the National Enquirer instead!
====================================================
Well, they certainly did the best job on the John Edwards mistress story
October 13th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
You talk about zero watchers – BUT many public places, e.g. bank lobbies, gyms, terminals, waiting rooms etc play Fox or CNN all the time – with the mood setting effect you note.
October 13th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Yes, Matthew, it greatly irritates you when people with whom you have political differences endeavor to deceive. The nerve!
October 13th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Jeez, it isn’t as if there isn’t an obvious explanation…
CNN domestic and Fox and MSNBC are domestic propaganda outlets doing the pan et circenses routine for a public that is in more and more personal troubles.
October 13th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
CNN International is available on Time Warner Cable here in NYC (Channel 133). I watch it all the time.
October 13th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
You know, I lived in Britain for many years and got used to the dulcet tones of BBC reporters telling me the news all the time. The hardest thing for me to learn coming back to the States was to never turn on the ruddy television. Even the networks I liked still ground away at the pieces of my soul.
Thank god for news podcasts. I mostly read print media, but a little dose of Lehrer, Amanour, Maddow, and Jon Stewart rounds out the news experience for me.
October 13th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I really do think cable news is rotting my brain
October 14th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Well, the reason this crap with cable news is because supposedly, we the views want this. I remember a time when the T.V. stations shut off at 12 or 1 pm and that was it. People back then knew that anything newsworthy took time to happen.
Where and when did this idea of 24hr news come from anyway?
October 14th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
[...] it turns out, the irritant was the return of the constant, frantic bleat of cable news, after a prolonged period of time abroad enjoying the “high-fiber” content of [...]
October 14th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
[...] Yglesias has returned home to the delights of US cable TV and notices their insidious effect on his [...]
October 17th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
You make a great point about the extremely low viewership of cable news. The problem is, it reaches beyond those people simply watching. What happens on cable news spreads to newspaper columns, local news, radio shows, and by word of mouth.
October 17th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
[...] Yglesias. has an excellent post at ThinkProgress titled “The Cable Effect” that demonstrates how the influence of daytime cable news works. Also read the post [...]
October 18th, 2009 at 2:59 am
[...] It’s just too silly, and Matthew Yglesias considers something more insidious, the strange influence that daytime cable news has on American politics: [...]
October 18th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias » The Cable Effect The dichotomy between CNN domestic and CNN International underscores the fact that domestic US news reporting organizations, for the most part, treat Americans as if they’re developmentally disabled toddlers. It’s Pikachu news, focused on sharp graphics and catch phrase of the day, whereas CNN International reports a wider range of news in language that a high schooler can comprehend. (tags: yglesias cnn media news stupidity usa distraction attention journalism) [...]
October 18th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Bring back Edward R. Murrow! (And Matthew, find another place to work — one that does not subject you to Fox-sound. Why would anyone who cares about the human spirit do that?)
October 19th, 2009 at 10:47 am
[...] this is how we spin our political “dialogue.” This is the failure of cable news, which takes these memes and runs with them, inflates them, saturates them in the fertilizer of [...]