Entertainment and the News
Historically, broadcasting networks have tried to separate news and entertainment. In 1976 CBS News president Richard S. Salant insisted on “drawing the sharpest possible line . . . between our line of broadcast business, which is dealing with fact, and that in which our associates on the entertainment side of the business are generally engaged.” By the 1990s, the lines had blurred. CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather complained in 1993 that “the Hollywoodization of news” had replaced the journalistic ethos of the Murrow era. With the rise of cable television, celebrity pundits pushed politics further into the realm of spectacle. In response, comedians created faux news shows satirizing the pundits, as they themselves became important sources of news for a new generation of viewers.
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