TW: Obviously Bartlett has joined my go to list of pundits/experts. But he frame succinctly why most TV news has degenerated into a boiling morass where conflict is everything. Substance and nuance be damned. And yes....we get what we pay for...if substance and nuance were truly desired by the audience Charlie Rose et al. would be ubiquitous rather than Hannity/Olbermann et al.
From Bruce Bartlett at Capital Gains and Games:
"Anyone who regularly does TV interviews knows that one is always required to do a pre-interview in which a producer feels you out as to what you will say in response to certain hypothetical questions. It would be simpler if they just came out and said, "We are looking for someone to go on air and say Obama is the anti-Christ (or whatever). Are you willing to do that?"
Such a method, however, is crass and offends the dignity of potential guests, so instead the producer will talk around the issue. She (they are almost always female) will say something like this: "We are thinking about doing a segment on whether Obama is the anti-Christ and looking for guests who will debate this topic. If we had you on what would your take be?"
If you say that the idea is ridiculous you will be thanked and the producer will move on to the next name on her list. Eventually she will find a crazy person like Alan Keyes to say what she wants him to say or someone so desperate to be on TV that he will play Devil's Advocate and pretend to believe that Obama is the anti-Christ for the sake of 5 minutes of air time..."
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1171/perils-talking-head
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