Ratings, Rantings and Rebellion

The March cable ratings show MSNBC moving ahead of CNN in prime-time audience size for a month . This is the first time that CNN has fallen to third in prime time. AP has the story here.

While I am tempted to a certain Schadenfreude at CNN's decline, I fear that the cause of this shift is another symptom of the growing divisiveness and hostility in American politics and our larger society.

What is going on here? The aging and death of more and more of Larry King audience might explain a drop in CNN's ratings. The lack of critical breaking news that viewers follow hour after hour like their grandparents bought 'extra' editions of papers carrying stories about the Lindberg kidnapping might explain more of the drop.

But it seems that CNN has not just lost viewers but that MSNBC has gained viewers. And that is the troubling aspect. Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, the Bonnie and Clyde of unbiased Media, are regularly beating CNN's evening shows. For those lucky enough to have missed Olberman and Maddow, any 15 minutes of their show will make even the most non-partisan individual homesick for the the good old days of Lord Haw Haw and Tokyo Rose.

Say what you will about O'Reilly and Hannity (and I have), when they treat guests that offer opposing points badly one can at least admire the fact that they have the fairness to at least let them on. One gets a sense that balance on Olbermann and Maddow involves people who think Noam Chomsky is a dangerous moderate.

But I come not to praise or bury either. The growing success of MSNBC at night as the alternative to Fox suggests that the growing partisanship and distrust in American politics is not only not healing but festering.

If more and more moderate viewers are moving from CNN to MSNBC and Fox, it suggests that there is declining interest for debate and more desire for reinforcement of opinion. And that is not good.