American Idiots
From "That's the way it was..." to "You're not gonna believe this shit..."
Scott Pelley announcing his Substack in...
Three.
Two.
….
(LOL.)
If I understand what happened, Pelley essentially stood up in the company cafeteria and informed his bosses that they were a collection of short-sighted morons.
To which the corporation responded:
“Thank you for your feedback. Security will escort you out.”
Of course, they fired him.
There is a technical term for publicly denouncing management while drawing a paycheck from management.
It’s called insubordination.
Corporations are not democracies.
That said, let’s not pretend politics had nothing to do with it.
CBS has spent the better part of a year slowly transforming itself into a network acceptable to Trump-world because that’s what ownership wants. That’s what makes the deals work. That’s what protects the interests involved.
The old fantasy that capital automatically opposes authoritarianism was always nonsense.
Historically, capital often discovers it can make perfectly good money under authoritarianism.
Sometimes more.
This is not exactly a shocking development.
What is amusing is watching the media class suddenly discover that ownership matters.
“Oh my God!”
“The independence of journalism!”
“The integrity of the newsroom!”
Friends, where have you been?
News was never independent.
What existed—at least for a period of time—was an understanding between owners, editors, reporters, and audiences that the value of the product depended upon a reputation for credibility.
The audience paid for information.
The network sold trust.
Everybody benefited.
Then somebody discovered outrage had better margins.
First came “Breaking News.”
Everything became Breaking News.
A senator sneezed.
Breaking News.
A celebrity tweeted.
Breaking News.
A congressman accidentally put his pants on backward.
Breaking News.
Then new media arrived and improved the formula.
Breaking News every fifteen seconds.
Breaking News: Be Angry.
Breaking News: Panic Immediately.
Breaking News: Democracy Is Ending.
Breaking News: Buy My Subscription.
Now we’ve reached the final evolutionary stage.
“You are NOT going to believe this shit.”
I am not exaggerating.
That is now an actual news introduction.
That’s the “face” of this “independent news” movement.
Walter Cronkite would be drinking heavily.
Everyone claims to be better than the legacy networks today.
Maybe.
I don’t see much evidence.
Fox sells outrage wrapped in infobabes.
MSNBC/MSNOW/MSGONNABEGONESOON sells outrage wrapped in smug intellectualism.
CBS sells outrage, presently wrapped in red-hatted “Karen-inspired” nonsense.
CNN sells outrage, outraging against outrage. Watch Scott Jennings duke it out!
Half the Substack ecosystem sells outrage.
Half the YouTube ecosystem sells outrage.
The product differs less than the packaging.
One version wraps itself in patriotism.
Another wraps itself in resistance.
A third wraps itself in independence.
A fourth wraps itself in authenticity.
But underneath?
The same product.
Emotional validation.
People don’t want information.
They want confirmation.
They want somebody to tell them they are right, their enemies are stupid, and civilization is collapsing exactly the way they suspected.
The market rewards this behavior.
So the market gets more of it.
If Americans genuinely valued critical thinking, Donald Trump would have been politically buried years ago.
Not because of ideology.
Because of observable reality.
You don’t need a PhD in political science to notice the criminality, corruption, dishonesty, and institutional vandalism.
You simply need functioning eyes.
But that’s not the business model.
The business model is not understanding.
The business model is engagement.
The business model is not informing citizens.
The business model is creating customers.
And customers who are angry come back tomorrow.
So when Scott Pelley eventually launches his inevitable Substack, podcast, video channel, streaming platform, newsletter, community, membership tier, premium tier, super-premium tier, and whatever else follows...
We’ll see.
Perhaps he’ll build something different.
Perhaps he’ll become the latest participant in the great American outrage economy.
My money is on the latter.
The circle of life continues.
As Green Day observed twenty years ago:
“Don’t want a nation under the new mania.”
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we built.
Cynical or not, this is perhaps the most concise and "rage free" summary response to the frustrating question "What the hell happened to the news??"
It reads like a matter of fact progression of incentives and choices over time.... No finger pointing, no blaming, no judgement... really more of a "history thusfar" than media bashing.
(If you think this qualifies as media bashing, I suspect you might benefit from checking your assumptions)
I'll be saving this one line in particular:
"Then somebody discovered outrage had better margins."
Breaking! You won’t believe what Bryan Del Monte just said! Dramatic Massive Video at 5!
I can hardly wait for football season!