Last updated: February 21, 2008 - 10:25am
IS FAKE NEWS NOW THE STANDARD?
[SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, AUTHOR: Jonah Goldberg]
[Commentary] FEMA's fake news conference was foolish. But what isn't in the TV news business these days? While the network news broadcasts are sustained by the consumers of denture cream, adult diapers and pharmacological marital aides, it's "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" that have a grip on the hip, iPhone crowd. And plenty of those younger viewers seem to believe that they can deduce what's going on in the real world from jokes on a fake newscast. It's no longer funny because it's true. It's true because it's funny. The problem of parsing fact from fiction, news from entertainment, has been inherent to broadcast journalism from the beginning. TV news is, and always has been, the shallowest branch of journalism. This is why TV journalism in particular operates like a trade guild -- not because it's so hard to do but because it's so easy. I also mind that TV news is trying to be relevant to viewers not on the AARP's mailing list. What I find dismaying is that "relevance" is literally coming at the expense of reality.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-goldberg6nov06,1,7586485.column?coll=la-news-comment
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