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Politico on cable news controversies: "Are Americans Addicted to Outrage?"
The real reason cable talking heads say offensive things? We like it too much to stop them.
By JEFFREY M. BERRY and SARAH SOBIERAJ
Jeffrey M. Berry is professor of political science at Tufts University.
Sarah Sobieraj is associate professor of sociology at Tufts University. They are authors of The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility.
Sarah Sobieraj is associate professor of sociology at Tufts University. They are authors of The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility.
January 03, 2014
In December, MSNBC’s Martin Bashir made headlines for calling Sarah Palin a “world-class idiot” and suggesting that someone defecate in her mouth. Rush Limbaugh stirred the pot a few weeks earlier when he decided to take on the pope, calling the Holy Father a Marxist and then, some days later, claiming, “the left’s sacrament is abortion.” Just this past Sunday, a panel of comedians on Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC drew criticism for mocking a photo of Mitt Romney’s family, including his adopted African-American grandchild, with one of Harris-Perry’s guests singing, “one of these things is not like the other.” Incendiary comments by both provocative pundits and charismatic hosts are now commonplace. On cable news networks, talk radio and in the political blogosphere there is a constant stream of name-calling, belittling, character assassination and falsehoods.
Americans tell pollsters they dislike this kind of talk and believe it degrades our political system. But the audience data tell a different story: In fact, Americans find this type of political commentary quite compelling. By our calculation, part of an analysis we did for our new book, The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility, the aggregate daily audience for such content is roughly 47 million people. In a cluttered media landscape where advertisers have a sea of choices, anxious television and radio producers hungry for revenue have sought new ways to break through the clutter—to stop the channel surfers as they peruse other options—and reach audiences. And the popular agent provocateurs of political talk media not only do the job—they also do it relatively cheaply. (Consider that CNN’s administrative expenses make up about twice as much of its budget share as at Fox or MSNBC.) As a result, America has developed a robust and successful Outrage Industry that makes money from calling political figures idiots, or even Nazis.
The basic business model encourages hosts and bloggers to court controversy as a way of generating higher ratings (and, thus, more advertising dollars). This week’s uproar over Harris-Perry’s treatment of Romney’s grandchild is illustrative. Harris-Perry subsequently apologized, but while she and the network may regret having offended the Romneys, it’s doubtful they regret the fallout for her program. The episode has garnered a good deal of attention in the mainstream press, putting Harris-Perry square in the national spotlight. Unless she loses her job (as Bashir ultimately did), the controversy could prove more a blessing than a curse, because carefully negotiated shock is profitable.
Consider that Fox News Channel’s 2012 profit (admittedly in an election year) neared $1 billion, up 11 percent from the previous year, according to SNL Kagan, the media and communications analysis firm. MSNBC’s $203 million in profits, while much smaller, was up 4 percent from the previous year. The media holdings of Clear Channel Communications, the largest owner and syndicator of talk radio, are also highly profitable (though talk radio over-expanded and is now undergoing something of a shakeout). Only outrage blogs fail to make much in the way of money; few attract significant amounts of advertising, and they instead tend to be subsidized by their writers or owners, whose labor keeps these blogs going. The hope of many bloggers is to gain enough notoriety so that their writers can become political figures in their own right, like bloggers Erick Erickson or Michelle Malkin, who are now frequent guests on—you guessed it—cable TV.
Americans tell pollsters they dislike this kind of talk and believe it degrades our political system. But the audience data tell a different story: In fact, Americans find this type of political commentary quite compelling. By our calculation, part of an analysis we did for our new book, The Outrage Industry: Political Opinion Media and the New Incivility, the aggregate daily audience for such content is roughly 47 million people. In a cluttered media landscape where advertisers have a sea of choices, anxious television and radio producers hungry for revenue have sought new ways to break through the clutter—to stop the channel surfers as they peruse other options—and reach audiences. And the popular agent provocateurs of political talk media not only do the job—they also do it relatively cheaply. (Consider that CNN’s administrative expenses make up about twice as much of its budget share as at Fox or MSNBC.) As a result, America has developed a robust and successful Outrage Industry that makes money from calling political figures idiots, or even Nazis.
The basic business model encourages hosts and bloggers to court controversy as a way of generating higher ratings (and, thus, more advertising dollars). This week’s uproar over Harris-Perry’s treatment of Romney’s grandchild is illustrative. Harris-Perry subsequently apologized, but while she and the network may regret having offended the Romneys, it’s doubtful they regret the fallout for her program. The episode has garnered a good deal of attention in the mainstream press, putting Harris-Perry square in the national spotlight. Unless she loses her job (as Bashir ultimately did), the controversy could prove more a blessing than a curse, because carefully negotiated shock is profitable.
Consider that Fox News Channel’s 2012 profit (admittedly in an election year) neared $1 billion, up 11 percent from the previous year, according to SNL Kagan, the media and communications analysis firm. MSNBC’s $203 million in profits, while much smaller, was up 4 percent from the previous year. The media holdings of Clear Channel Communications, the largest owner and syndicator of talk radio, are also highly profitable (though talk radio over-expanded and is now undergoing something of a shakeout). Only outrage blogs fail to make much in the way of money; few attract significant amounts of advertising, and they instead tend to be subsidized by their writers or owners, whose labor keeps these blogs going. The hope of many bloggers is to gain enough notoriety so that their writers can become political figures in their own right, like bloggers Erick Erickson or Michelle Malkin, who are now frequent guests on—you guessed it—cable TV.
Full: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/angry-politics-americans-addicted-101735_full.html
12 replies
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Its just formulaic. Too many similarities between them, especially the right wing hate mongers, to be coincidence. From Father Charles Coughlin to Bob Grant to Rush, they perfected the art of the carny sale of conservative talking points. We could probably get someone from DU to start making the same pitches and become a beloved conservative commentator-except their tongue might turn to fire and their head would explode. However, it would expose the charade! 
