Cable News Is a Cancer, and We Need to Stop Feeding It
MINOT, N.D. — Ariana Pekary was, until recently, a producer at MSNBC.
Fed up with her job, she opted to resign and then wrote a scorching indictment of the cable-news industry on her website.
It’s worth your time to read.
“We are a cancer and there is no cure,” she wrote, quoting another television veteran.
“As it is, this cancer stokes national division, even in the middle of a civil rights crisis. The model blocks diversity of thought and content because the networks have incentive to amplify fringe voices and events, at the expense of others … all because it pumps up the ratings,” she continues.
Pekary describes an editorial process for cable news that amounts to seeing what’s trending online or repackaging whatever content rated well the previous day. Subject matter that should receive nuanced and careful coverage is instead tossed down in front of a red pundit and a blue pundit so they can fight over it like two junkyard dogs trying to get at a steak.
