24-hour cable news = 24-hour cable op/ed page

I tend to watch a few minutes here and there from CNN, Fox News and MSNBC each week.  I also visit Mediaite a few times a week to see what else those three channels that call themselves "cable news" are up to.

It's clear that under Jeff Zucker, CNN is working on transforming itself to have more attitude, be more opinion-based.  Which I guess is fine if it's balanced and they retain enough straight-news people that when breaking news happens, some of their staff are still credible.  Jake Tapper, who should have been treated better by ABC, was a coup for CNN, and the return of Crossfire has been informative and (for the most part) polite debate.

Fox News and MSNBC might seem like the two ideological opposites, but MSNBC has really gone off the deep end trying to out-Fox Fox. A recent Pew study had these results:

CNN - 54% news, 46% opinion
FNC - 45% news, 55% opinion
MSNBC - 15% news, 85% opinion

What currently saves MSNBC's soul are the presence of Joe Scarborough and Chuck Todd.  Morning Joe is the one show on that channel where Republicans are not all evil white supremacists trying to bring back the Confederacy. Chuck Todd is the last real journalist on there, and he has to look at a former co-worker like Norah O'Donnell shining on CBS, or at how much happier Dylan Ratigan is being off TV altogether.  The death of Tim Russert meant the death of a credible cable-news wing for NBC. Just in the last month, MSNBC has had to get rid of two hosts (Alec Baldwin and Martin Bashir) for saying outrageous things. The Cycle started promising, but when S.E. Cupp left, it became another echo chamber.

That same study also showed that in 2012, MSNBC's negative-to-positive stories on Mitt Romney were 23-to-1, while on Fox News, the negative-to-positive stories on Barack Obama were 8-to-1.

As for Fox, the ratings are still there to support anything they do.  They didn't have to let Glenn Beck walk - he still brought ratings - but after one too many headache-inducing conspiracy theories, they decided to replace him with The Five, and the transition has been smooth. Eric Bolling is there to tow the company's conservative line, Andrea Tantaros and Kimberly Guilfoyle interchangeably agree, Dana Perino at least have the "former press secretary" title to offer insights others can't, Greg Gutfeld is the right-wing comedian, and Bob Beckel is the token Democrat "kids these days" grump in the group.

Sean Hannity keeps the semblance of debate on his show, though his panel is usually two conservatives and a whipping boy.  Bill O'Reilly does his "War on Christmas" stuff along with whatever else he wants to spout about that day.  Megyn Kelly has been a welcome change to their primetime lineup, as Greta was getting too stale and predictable. Kelly wouldn't interview Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin and not ask a challenging question or two.

Many days it seems like these channels exist to provide material for The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Quick note on those two. When John Oliver took over for Stewart for three months, the Daily Show went places it usually wouldn't with Jon, and it was refreshing, and I didn't really realize that until Jon came back, and it went back to a lot of business-as-usual protect-the-White-House mode. They'll allow jabs sometimes. The best illustration of this was when Oliver did a segment on Sarah Palin, stopped himself, and said "You know what? We can ignore her" and then he didn't mention her again the rest of the summer, which is about what she deserves. When Stewart came back, anything controversial Palin said made it into the show again.

I can't even watch Colbert anymore. I'm looking forward to see what Oliver does on HBO, which really needs something besides Bill Maher's DNC commercial each week.