Calm down – the exits of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon are not that big a deal
Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail. He is not related to Tucker Carlson.
While the media circus around these developments made for some time-wasting entertainment, do they really matter in terms of the American news landscape? Not really. If there is a winner in this race to the bottom, it is Fox, which outpaces the other two handily in both total-day and prime-time viewership. CNN is the poster child for irrelevance, typically a very distant also-ran gasping to clear 500,000 viewers during the day and with prime-time ratings so low it trails not only its main news rivals but specialty cable channels such as HGTV, the History Channel, the Food Network and the Hallmark Channel.
The upshot for people like Mr. Carlson and Mr. Lemon is that while they are considered star talent, being a star on cable news is the epitome of being a big fish in a small pond. Perhaps that’s why they have become shriller and more outrageous over time, driving hard partisan agendas to please the faithful.
Earnest consumers of news and information shake their heads and admit it’s often hard to tell cable newscasts from cartoon shows. Many worry aloud about the influence such rabidly biased network hosts have on consumers and voters.
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