by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
Contra Kevin Drum, cable news' tendency to flit from this week's outrage to next week's local-story-taken-national isn't a necessarily a function of the presence of 24-hour networks. Certainly the relatively low cost of covering "conterversies" and the multi-day-draw of stories like the West Virginia mining accidents has appeal to news directors. But CNN could just as easily re-run the same hour's worth of news from 5am to Noon Eastern, the same way ESPN repeats Sportscenter, with perhaps five to ten minutes set aside should events change, thus limiting the appeal of "controversies" and reducing the opportunities for scalphunters to run their mouths in front of a camera. They could spend more time letting the cameras roll during newsmakers' press conferences rather than let second and third-rate pundits gossip about politics like it's a pschodramatic race for the eigth grade class president. Evening programming could focus on more longer form investigative journalism ... not necessarily an hour on the same topic, but more in the spirit of 60 Minutes, or perhaps The Daily Show without the funny [Think about it! It'd make for a good news program.]. You could even have shows dedicated to different topics: Health, Politics, the Military, etc.
Instead, the cable news networks all seem to treat their job as providing the same content as CNN Headline News, only with more gossip (Crossfire, Hardball, etc.) and more celebrity journalist interviews with news makers (e.g. Larry King Live) . But there's nothing inherent to the 24-hour news station format that means things have to be this way.
