Bill Moyers slams networks for using Trump as cheap fuel for their 2016 campaign ratings

Bill Moyers slams networks for using Trump as cheap fuel for their 2016 campaign ratings

by Moyers & Company, Raw Story

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/bill-moyers-slams-networks-for-using-trump-as-cheap-fuel-for-their-2016-campaign-ratings/

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Our friend and colleague John Nichols at The Nation magazine says that it’s useless to try to get the networks to dial it back; every Trump bellow leaves them begging for more. Rather, he writes, “When a candidate is playing to the worst fears of Americans, what’s needed is more serious and intensive coverage that puts things in perspective … The point is to recognize that there are other candidates who are getting as much support as Trump, that are exciting crowds and gaining significant support, and that are advancing dramatically different responses to the challenges facing America. That’s not happening now.”

Big surprise, the problem is money. Tons of it. Trump brings ratings and ratings raise advertising revenue. What’s more, in an insane election cycle like this one, cash already is pouring in from the production, sale and placement of political TV advertising, cash that also makes television executives and political strategists wealthy. Here’s CBS chief executive Les Moonves at an investor presentation last week, cheering on Trump and the other Republican candidates: “The more they spend, the better it is for us… Go Donald! Keep getting out there. And you know, this is fun, watching this, let them spend money on us… We’re looking forward to a very exciting political year in ’16.”

Fun? Exciting? Only if you enjoy getting rich, as Moonves apparently does, while watching the country go collectively bonkers.

This is the same Les Moonves who declared during the 2012 campaign, “Super PACs may be bad for America, but they’re very good for CBS.” And earlier this year, on an investors call, he said, “Looking ahead, the 2016 presidential election is right around the corner and, thank God, the rancor has already begun.” You can hear the fictional Howard Beale of Paddy Chayefsky’s Network spinning in his fictional grave, still mad as hell.



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