CNN’s Lou Dobbs, Fox News & Bill O’Reilly, Chris Matthews & MSNBC, Plus Keith Olbermann

Why Do Cable News Anchors Insist On Becoming the News?
Cable news is all wrapped up in itself these days. From on-air spats (FOX News tackling Keith Olbermann) to opinion campaigns (Lou Dobbs and immigration), it’s become a mess! This will only get worse, until one of the big three cable networks takes a stand… and decides to focus on news rather that bickering or opinion campaigns.

Chris Matthews is a hot topic this for his seemingly off-track comments about Hillary Clinton. This week he said, "The reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around.” Matthews said on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ show. He apologized on-air Thursday which drew another round of headlines.

Lou Dobbs is routinely making headlines with his strong opinions about immigration… and now whether he will run for president. One headline asks, “Dark Horse Dobbs?”
Bill O’Reilly made headlines for his tussle with a Barack Obama security member a few weeks ago. More headlines came when O’Reilly withheld video of the scuffle for more than 36 hours… as a promotion tool for his show.

Cable news is creating its own news. These cable “news” honchos are making news for their opinions, not their aggressive coverage of an issue affecting Americans. Dobbs is passionate about his immigration stance. But his passion and persuasion become the news more than his digging for information and details that could help Americans form their own opinions on the issue. O’Reilly ‘news-entertainment’ show makes news often. Don’t forget Keith Olbermann who routine attacks someone at FOX as a “World’s Worst”.

Could you imagine Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley or Chet Huntley making these kinds of headlines? Those kings of news coverage focused on content, not their opinions. Their endless pursuit of information and details built their journalistic reputations. They challenged interviewees in attempts to expose answers to broaden viewers’ understanding of a topic. Their opinions didn’t become the headlines… thanksfully.

TV news should hear the call to action from viewers. “Just do the news.” Watching this bickering and these opinion-laden “newscasts” is like watching a car accident for viewers. Sure, they will slow down to glance. But, they keep driving. Before long, TV news will be laying by the roadside with viewers speeding by for a better view somewhere else.

Consider this information. Just before I wrote this post, I entered Chris Matthews, Bill O’Reilly and Lou Dobbs into the Google News search engine. Remember, this is a snapshot in time for Friday night at 8:30pm.
For “Chris Matthews” Google returned 195 news articles
For “Lou Dobbs” Google returned 32 news articles
For “Bill O’Reilly” Google returned 16 news articles.
Most all of those articles were about the anchors and their actions… not news that affects Americans.