CNN Using Tabloid Tactics

linkbait

Wow. Yeah, talking about what can give you cancer should get someone to click on it. The use of caps for THIS was a nice touch, too.

It’s quite sad when one of the country’s main sources of news is becoming little more than a linkbait generator.

This is yet another sign that when it comes to a public service, i.e. keeping the population informed about what’s going on around them, it’s better to have this sponsored by the government.

Journalists and editors need to be encouraged to inform, not to entertain. To the extent they’re prioritizing the latter, they’re ignoring the former.

Case in point: BBC.

I wonder what the GOP/Tea Party response is to the glaringly obvious fact that the BBC produces superior news to CNN and Fox News.

CNN and Fox News are trying to feed their audience candy, because that’s what kids like. The BBC is informing an educated and rational population.

Keep in mind, though, there are plenty of people in Britain, and Europe, that do partake of crap news. The difference is that they have a pure option. They have an option for great news, provided by the government and relatively immune to the influence of profit.

That’s the universal conflict with any public service that mixes with profit: The profit always wins. So if CNN can only make money by talking about boobs and missing-children-mysteries, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.

You don’t want to be the person explaining to the corporate masters that you decided to make less money by being a better news organization.

This is why you should keep some light between profit and public services.

That’s why healthcare and police and fire and education should be mostly public services, not for profit.

Oh, we were talking about news.

Same thing. The drive for increasing profits will dominate any other incentive in a system that has profit as a significant component. I’m not sure how many times we need to step on this rake to realize how stupid it is.

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