The domination of fluff pieces and pundits

     The neologism infotainment, a portmanteau of information and entertainment, was coined during the nineteen-eighties. An early example of this television format was the show Hard Copy. Parodied in the November 1994 episode of The Simpsons ("Homer Bad Man") as Rock Bottom, Hard Copy was a sensationalistic, lurid, alarmist tabloid show. Not only has U.S. television seen an excess of infotainment shows (e.g., Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, Extra, and E! Entertainment Television) but this obsession with all things celebrity has crept into broadcast and cable news. What was a starlet wearing to an awards ceremony? Who's dating whom? When was their last bowel movement?!
     Fox News Channel is most guilty of this trend toward devoting pieces viewed as trivial or superficial. Witness the coverage of what has been deemed the "missing white woman syndrome": Natalee Holloway, Chandra Levy, and Laci Peterson are representative of this media phenomenon. In addition, when something violates the FNC narrative, less coverage is guaranteed. Look at their treatment of the Second Gulf War, which showed parallels to the morass that was the Vietnam War.
     Equally important is the rise of punditry, which has led to viewers confusing what is fact and what is opinion. A controversial issue suddenly becomes a "debate", with talking heads shouting at each other to the point of unintelligibility. Wealthy pundits proclaim to be the voice of the masses and feign populism to connect with their audience. Pundits speak derisively of the "Ivory Tower" academics and "elites", portraying intellectualism as equivalent to effeteness.

     During the monologue of comedian, Catholic, and left-of-center moderate Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006, he stated that "...reality has a well-known liberal bias." His on-screen persona is an amalgam of Geraldo Rivera, Bill O'Reilly, and Stone Phillips. On the première of The Colbert Report, his segment "The Wørd" (a piece satirizing The O'Reilly Factor's Talking Points Memo) introduced the term "truthiness."