Almost from the moment Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot through the brain by a political extremist on Saturday, the media has been wringing its hands over the toxic power of partisan news talk.
But despite the remorse, the economics of cable news and talk radio suggests that nothing is going to stop the hyper-partisan approach that has fuelled the rise of Fox, MSNBC and the career of Glenn Beck.
Read also: Rhetoric vs. Reportage: How TV News Is Covering the Tucson Shootings
“It is in the economic interest of cable news and talk radio to outrage their audience, to turn their segments into car wrecks that we can’t take our eyes away from,” Martin Kaplan, director of the Norman Lear Center and professor at the USC Annenberg School, told TheWrap.
He added: “The economics favor the extreme point of view and the paranoid claims. You get better numbers and you can control the expense side by reducing a reporting staff.”
Giving Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity a platform to flex their right-wing muscles has made Fox the king of the cable news heap. Fox owned the top 12 cable news shows in average total viewers and swept the top 10 among 25 to 54-year-olds. In the front of the ratings pack, O’Reilly (3.2 million total viewers), Hannity (2.3 million) and Beck (2.2 million), firebrands all.
Likewise, MSNBC’s decision to ratchet up the left-leaning political posturing allowed the network to boast a prime-time win over CNN in the 25 to 54 year old demographic for the past two years.
Watch video: Jon Stewart Doesn't Know What to Say About Arizona Shootings
“It’s like the late night model. Even though the host makes money, the cost of everything else is low. It’s a lot cheaper to have a host espousing opinions with couple of guests, than to have correspondents across the globe,” Alex Weprin, co-editor of TVNewser, told TheWrap.
When it comes to radio, an ultra-conservative such as Limbaugh has maintained his ratings dominance for two decades by offering withering criticism of Democrats. His claims about Democrat-backed death panels may bear only a tenuous relationship with reality, but his 15 million listeners will prevent stations from messing with the overheated formula -- even in the wake of an assassination attempt on a U.S. congresswoman.
“I don’t think you’ll see cable channels change their ways. Anchors and network bosses may pay lip service to the idea of changing the rhetoric, but the 2012 campaign is just around the corner and when it heats up we’ll be back to using violent imagery,” Weprin said.
In the wake of last weekend’s shocking violence, everyone from Pima County, Ariz.
