2023 Cable Breaking News: A Year Marked by Controversies and Media Division

My 2022 wrap-up column of the year in cable news began with the below graph:

“In this world of uncertainty, one thing is constant: With scant exception, the news delivered by cable broadcast channels will either be incomplete, misleading, prejudicial or outright lies.”

It didn’t take long in 2023 for the first outright lie on cable news that I saw to be told. It occurred on Jan. 3, when Wolf Blitzer said on CNN’s The Situation Room that a colleague of Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills football player who suffered heart-stoppage during a game and remained in critical condition at a Cincinnati Hospital, would provide an update on Hamlin’s condition.

During a lengthy interview with Dion Dawkins, Hamlin’s teammate, not a single question was asked by Blitzer about the new medical information that was supposedly being announced, nor did Dawkins volunteer any.

Over the years that I’ve been watching Blitzer I have found him to be a mediocre interviewer who asks soft ball questions. But his deliberately misleading comment before interviewing Dawkins now puts Blitzer in the Fox News commentator’s category and that’s nothing to be proud of.

Also over the years I have written that listening to commentary on cable TV political programming is similar to a tape recording being played continuously. A prime example of this were the never-ending round table discussions on CNN during the GOP comedy show known as The Election of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. CNN’s coverage of the House votes for Speaker was a journalistic disgrace, as the panel members erupted in laughter several times about the on-goings. MSNBC’s coverage was led by Stephan Kornacki, who handicapped the vote on his Big Board, when a serious discussion of the proceedings would have made for better journalism. By far and away the best coverage of the voting for 

Speaker was on Fox News whose hard news reporters explained to the viewing audience in specific detail of what was occurring.

(Watching Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Mike Rogers confront Rep. Matthew Gaetz prior to the vote that elected McCarthy was cable TV at its all too infrequent best.)

I’ve often written that the problem with cable news political reporting is that it contains a bare minimum of original news, mostly a rehash of what was reported in newspapers, and a maximum of slanted commentary, as well as the ever present and tiresome round table discussions with self-anointed experts. I’ve also written that cable is at its best when covering fast-breaking news as the tumult of the GOP choosing a Speaker of the House showed. 

Perhaps the most hypocritical of all cable news programs is Media Buzz, a supposedly impartial review of the week’s news, hosted by Howie Kurtz on Fox News. Kurtz positions his program as an impartial take on the news. But despite having some moderate guests, the great majority veer to the far-right, some very far-right like Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist, and Kurtz’s comments are mostly conservative. Example: During a discussion regarding classified documents found in former Vice President Mike Pence’s possession, Kurtz led his Jan. 29 program by referring to “one batch after another” found by President Biden’s lawyers. I know that the dictionary definition of “batch” can mean more than “one,” but as used by Kurtz the meaning was clearly used as a right-wing derogatory meaning. At least the prime time commentators on Fox and MSNBC don’t attempt to camouflage their positions.

And On Feb. 5, Kurtz, who labels his program as a week’s review of the news (which I find hypocritical; it’s a right wing view of the news), may have reached a new low, when he referred to Hunter Biden as “the one-time drug addict and influence peddler.” Kurtz often attempts to camouflage his political leanings, but not successfully. His references to the president’s son were in lockstep with Fox’s far right philosophy.

Another example of why Kurtz’s Media Buzz program is just another program that wants to keep the MAGA audience happy: On Feb. 26, Kurtz attacked Emily Kohrs, the Atlanta special grand jury foreperson, for doing a round of interviews in which she gave her opinion of what might happen. Kurtz made it seem like Ms. Kohrs violated the jury rules, saying he had never heard of a similar situation, even though the presiding judge said that under Georgia laws she was entitled to discuss her opinion. Impartial former federal prosecutors and an Atlanta former D.A. said on other programs said that while they would have preferred her to say nothing, she did not violate Georgia rules and believed that her statements would have no bearing on what the current D.A. decided to do.

Over the years that I have been watching the Kurtz program, there have been many low points in his coverage of what he claims is an unbiased coverage of the week’s news. But thus far in 2023, the nadir of his imaginary impartial coverage occurred on April 23, when he defended Fox News’ coverage of the Dominion trial against his station. In comparison to other Fox programs, Media Buzz can justly claim to be a legitimate news source. But that’s like saying that the Wright’s brother’s airplane is equivalent to the most modern jet liner.

On his August 6 program, Kurtz signed off by saying, “We try to give you a balanced show.” As someone who has listened to his opening dialogue for many years and has written about his far right guests, he has to try harder because he still hasn’t achieved his goal, as his comments on his August 13 show below prove.

Kurtz led with a dialogue saying that the mainstream media which has not covered the Hunter Biden situation now has to pay attention to the Biden problem because a special counsel has been appointed. This was accompanierd by a chryon saying, “Press Had Ignored Hunter Probe.” It was only after a guest pointed out that the media was reporting on the situation prior to the special counsel being appointed, that Kurtz said, “I’m not saying there wasn’t any coverage at all,” but that was his initial message.

On the 10th anniversary of his show,  on September 3, Kurtz again attempted to convince viewers of his impartial coverage of the news by signing off with a statement saying that “we don’t cater to any one candidate or political party,” a line that is funnier than any I have heard on Saturday Night Live in many years.

Enough examples of why Kurtz is disingenuous when he says, “We try to give you a balanced show.”

CNN’s Town Hall, on May 10 with former president Donald Trump, stands out as perhaps the sorriest journalistic political programming of the year. The 2020 election was not rigged, but the Town Hall certainly was. CNN admitted that it deliberately filled the “auditorium with citizens representing a range of conservative views” and the audience responded as you would expect Trump backers to. In my opinion, a big mistake was having Kaitlan Collins as the moderator. While she admirably corrected many of Trump’s lies, he just talked over her at will and, in many cases her questions were phrased in a manner that permitted Trump to answer them as if he had written them, (although her questions were probably crafted by others). It’s obvious that CNN has big plans for Ms. Collins but having her spar with a mud wrestler like Trump did the audience an injustice and gave the indicted former president an opportunity to spread his lies to more than three-million viewers. The logical and better choice would have been Jim Acosta, who was the network's chief White House correspondent during the Trump administration. Acosta gained national fame for his never backing down and challenging Trump’s comments at press briefings and was not afraid to go punch by punch with him. Two other hard-hitting CNN reporters, Chris Wallace or Jake Tapper also would have been better choices. “Mr. Trump’s first lie was told just seconds into the night,” said Tapper of the Town Hall “and the falsehoods kept coming, fast and furious.”

Of course, the primary problem with cable political reporting is that in order to fill its time slots and to attract viewership cable opens its mics to rabble - rousing guests who would not be granted an “anything goes mic” on non-cable newscasts. Prime examples are the broadcasts of Tucker Carlson, the former Fox commentator, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, who continually provide a platform for liars who said that they had proof that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent, even though emails show that the Fox commentators didn’t believe the allegations. 

But MSNBC and CNN also deserve criticism for allowing their commentators and guests to express opinions disguised as facts. Throughout late February and March guest opinions were expressed without any pushback by program hosts that Trump would be indicted in New York in a matter of days, prompting the former president to tell his supporters that he expected to be indicted on March 21 and urging them to protest and ‘take our nation back.”  Of course that date passed without any indictment and the cable hosts, as usual, ignored the fact that they and their guests were once again wrong. But being wrong didn’t prevent them from being wrong again. The hosts and their guests then assured viewers that there would be no indictment of Donald Trump before the end of April because of a pre-planned April hiatus. And that the last day before the break would be on March 30, a Thursday -- a day that the Grand Jury is not involved with matters pertaining to the former president. As we all know, the district attorney and the jurors didn’t agree with the TV experts and voted to indict Mr. Trump on that date.

I’ve long expressed the opinion that cable news reporters often gloss over the news because, unlike beat print reporters, the “cableists” don’t know the nitty gritty of what they are reporting. Now it turns out as revealed in the Dominion defamation lawsuit against Fox, its prime time hosts didn’t believe the lies that they were reporting.

I’ve long believed that cable political programs have helped create the divide among Americans because of their one-sided, dishonest takes on the news.

So does conservative New York Times columnist David French, who wrote in his November 10 column, “that the media compounds the problem…” 

“Even if a party does try to moderate to appeal to the middle, partisan media still highlights the radicals that remain…,” wrote French.

And that’s why cable TV political news is most often a new form of yellow journalism.