It won't happen, of course. Legacy broadcast networks reap mucho bucks from publicly relating defense contractors and other institutional advertisers. However the once-revered Sunday shows of "public affairs, news and information" are anything but. This has been the case for I don't know how long; still, the programs persist in pushing the fallacy that they're there to inform. We could learn more from the inside of a matchbook cover.
The issue re-erupted, sort of, because of host Jonathan Karl's interview of House minority embarrassment Steve Scalise on ABC's "This Week," this week. The even larger embarrassment came when Karl asked Scalise if Trump was responsible for Jan. 6 and if he, the congressman, believed the election was stolen. Two simple, straightforward questions.
Scalise thereupon engaged in — I'll gussy up his response with a $20 word — successive tergiversations: "there’s a lot of blame to go around"; "millions of people are still concerned about" fraud and "states that did not follow their state laws."
Karl's quick-witted sleuthing and grilling? He dropped it, both its, and scurried along.
Not only "This Week" is rife with this manner of journalistic dereliction. All the Sunday shows are. The exceptional occasions when they're not only prove the rule. Cable shows also have the nasty habit of interviewing talking-pointed pols and administration officials, whose remarks you could script before they utter them, and are usually met with — next question. My habitual response is to click off, whether Republican or Democratic intonements.
I really don't care if these programs lose guests if those delicate guests run into pushback. The programs do care. They must interview somebody. Besides, their content is provided only as filler between commercial breaks. The programmers also don't care if I don't care.
Yet here's the Good News, The Word, a Gospel of Joy, dear Sunday-morn congregationists. MeTV has been airing Warner Brothers cartoons, Saturdays a.m., complete with Elmer, Bugs and Daffy. I wouldn't know how, but I'm sure you could tape them and run them in place of Sunday's Jonathan Karl — assuming you can tell the difference.