"Yes, I know, television is a very popular medium (mostly because it demands so little from its audience). But it is the worst way to engage politics in America. Compared to reading it is a wildly inefficient time suck. The format itself often strips the issue at hand of all nuance. It rewards demagoguery, and the host's words disappear into the ether so fast that inaccuracies slip easily past and are seldom corrected for the people misled by them. Often as not, its producers and writers just take insights from the written medium and dumb them down.
Don't get me wrong. Television is extremely hard to do well. Unfortunately, excelling in the medium and improving political discourse are often at odds. Chris Hayes and James Poulos, among others, show it's possible for up-and-coming intellects to do good non-Bloggingheads TV that's smart and engaging. (Milton Friedman, William F. Buckley, Ted Koppel, Mike Kinsley, Christopher Hitchens, Rachel Maddow – certain especially talented minds have always managed.) Since there are so few like them, I suspect that if politics on television were to magically disappear tomorrow, we'd all be better off."
- More Here . It's always a "pleasure" to read on the cognitive degradation induced by cable news. I would like to add if politics on television magically disappears tomorrow then even our health care cost would come down significantly and that happiness index will get a tremendous boost.
- More Here . It's always a "pleasure" to read on the cognitive degradation induced by cable news. I would like to add if politics on television magically disappears tomorrow then even our health care cost would come down significantly and that happiness index will get a tremendous boost.
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