The American public has been raised on nearly 40 years of being presented with psychotics on TV as entertainment and social commentary/activism, going back to the Abbie Hoffman Bill Kunsler days of the 60s, and recent generations have internalized the mode of thinking. Right on the money, RLK. Let's consider the political talk shows: Hannity & Colmes, Bill O'Reilly, Crossfire, The McLaughlin Group.....(pretty much name your show). Most (if not all) of them relies on crazed, loud, emotional content to attact viewers. Long gone are the days of Buckley's Firing Line, where people discussed the important issues of the day rationally, sanely, and politely.
The last TV news anchor of any depth or integrity was Howard K. Smith. He retired 30 years ago. I have to ask what people such as Margaret Carlson and Eleanor Clift are doing editing magazines or on talk shows. They more properly belong in mental institutions. We live in an age of insult television where rating are achieved by antagonizing the public. We now have people in their 30s who have grown up in it and have adopted the mentality. They consider mature intelligence a strange form of disease.