I got the Colbert reference, but it reminded me of something interesting that everyone with basic cable should watch and experience, at least a few times.
Brian Lamb created the gold standard for balanced reporting on political topics and current affairs with Washington Journal on C-SPAN. Expert guests are chosen when feasible in preference to talking heads, the show uses separate call-in lines for guests of various political affiliations to ensure balance, and in the interest of maintaining a neutral point of view the journalists are frighteningly capable of maintaining poker-faces in the face of whatever idiocy comes their way from guests or - more likely - callers. Their production does not depend on advertisers or ratings. It's all just brilliant. Their viewership numbers in the dozens.
In spite of all that, callers will at times complain randomly, often hilariously, about perceived political bias in what they are watching - while the journalists maintain their sober, quiet poker faces and the experts talk about whatever is within their expertise. So often these complaints have literally nothing to do with bias in the presentation and everything to do with bias in the viewer.
Brian Lamb created the gold standard for balanced reporting on political topics and current affairs with Washington Journal on C-SPAN. Expert guests are chosen when feasible in preference to talking heads, the show uses separate call-in lines for guests of various political affiliations to ensure balance, and in the interest of maintaining a neutral point of view the journalists are frighteningly capable of maintaining poker-faces in the face of whatever idiocy comes their way from guests or - more likely - callers. Their production does not depend on advertisers or ratings. It's all just brilliant. Their viewership numbers in the dozens.
In spite of all that, callers will at times complain randomly, often hilariously, about perceived political bias in what they are watching - while the journalists maintain their sober, quiet poker faces and the experts talk about whatever is within their expertise. So often these complaints have literally nothing to do with bias in the presentation and everything to do with bias in the viewer.