WHERE IS CRONKITE?
Why is Trump getting away with making the Mueller story so boring?
He has yelled “no conclusion” over and over again until that is all what TV news is about.
The problem is not NOT just FOX. Nor is it just the way CNN/MSNBC/CBS/NPR etc have handled the Mueller story. The problem is a story has been so overcooked in so many ways that it has become like a Big Mac.
The nightly news model is broken. Instead of a nightly news program, covering stories from around the world, we get one story repeated, tossed and recooked every imaginable way. Each hour a new host gets their screen time. As good as Rachel is, her material is the same as the ingredients served up Wolf Blitzer, Chris Hayes, Don Lemon, etc.
The credibility of any of these is replaced by a sense of fraught daytime TV drama.
Imagine instead a one hour, a modern version of the evening news. Imagine Mueller imbedded in stories about BREXIT, the Uigars, Sweden eliminating currency, Saudi palace scandals, Texas politics and maybe a dose of science once a week as the NY times does it. Hell, maybe even sports! The show would have credibility, the Mueller story would be limited to what is new that night and the talking heads programs could feed off the anchor program the way sitcoms used to follow Cronkhite and Brinkley.
Maybe even Fox would find a need to talk about something other than the daily Trump talking points. I know the argument is going to be that such journalism costs money. That is not really true. The web has changed that. There is more than enough material available every day from English speaking outlets to provide a rich menu. If there are a few dollars for correspondents or perhaps for ties ins to newspapers of foreign news services so much the better.