A sports reporter (and a good one, not throwing shade here), recently said this about changes to his network:
“…..our innovative new network that actually reports scores and gives great opinionated analysis.”
Remember when news used to be about objective analysis?
That, right there, is a problem with news in general, including sports news. “Opinion” and “analysis” are both important, but they're two different things, and the 24-hour news cycle has merged them in the name of manufacturing conflict for entertainment purposes. Once the news divisions were subsumed under entertainment, it became all about ratings and viewers, not objective reporting and analysis. It’s why, even hours after the offices of the President’s personal attorney were raided, a cable news network closed a prime-time show with a piece about how “sex-crazed pandas could kill you if they wanted to”. I can't watch cable news, because it's typically nothing more than a talking-head cage-match of officially sanctioned opinions (or view-bait on sex-crazed pandas) - in other words, entertainment designed to get you fired up and rooting for one side or the other. Segments may as well be introduced by Vince McMahon.
The President is right about one thing - it's all about the ratings, not about the content. And that's on us.
