Maybe there is some hope for the American corporate media after all. CNN has decided not to renew Tucker Carlson's contract and is considering cancelling Crossfire entirely.
NEW YORK - CNN said goodbye to pundit Tucker Carlson on Wednesday, and with him likely the "Crossfire" program that has been the granddaddy of high-volume political debate shows on cable television....
The bow-tied wearing conservative pundit got into a public tussle last fall with comic Jon Stewart, who has been critical of cable political programs that devolve into shoutfests.
"I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp," Klein told The Associated Press.
He said all of the cable networks, including CNN, have overdosed on programming devoted to arguing over issues. Klein said he wants more substantive programming that is still compelling.
"I doubt that when the president sits down with his advisers they scream at him to bring him up to date on all of the issues," he said. "I don't know why we don't treat the audience with the same respect."
This is especially interesting because judging from the language used it seems that perhaps Jon Stewart's high profile bashing of the show and it's host caused CNN executives to reconsider what they were presenting and how it made them look.
That episode was priceless. John Stewart made some very valid points and they seemed to go completely over Tucker's head. Tucker kept comparing his show with Stewart's, one being political debate show, the other a comedy show. The content of each shouldn't be scrutinized the same way, but Tucker didn't get that and it really made him look like a moron. A lot of these Crossfire type shows really do get into shouting matches now. On the news when they bring in 2 people on opposite sides of an argument to debate an issue, it just turns into one shouting over the other one so they can't be heard. CNN does this a lot. It's not enjoyable to watch in the least, so I don't. I turn it off and I don't watch Crossfire either. I like to see and participate in a debate, but only when both sides of the argument are presented, or it is not debate.
Another phenomena that came out of this was the spotlight on BitTorrent. This episode of Crossfire was one of the most traded BitTorrent files ever. That's how I got to see it. The attention may have been negative, as now BitTorrent sites are being taken down left and right. What is wrong though with downloading an episode of a TV show? How is that more wrong than recording it on your VCR to watch later?
I got put in the hospital for 13 months
because of Tucker Carlson.