May 9, 2012 - This comic was pretty obviously written during the whole Sandra Fluke controversy. I think there's no question a particular radio host was completely out of line in that situation, but I think the lack of responsibility extends far greater than just him. Most of the news is controlled by very few people who are in turn controlled by advertisers, advertisers want their products to be popular so they need the news to be popular. So how do you make the news popular? You make it controversial. News organizations have a major incentive to be as controversial as possible (without crossing the line that was crossed with Sandra Fluke) as it gets them better ratings and more advertising dollars. With such a system you encourage commentators to be as outrageous as possible (heck, I certainly find the Daily Show entertaining, but its host is also the most trusted newsman which really blurs the line quite a bit between humor and information (i'll back off slightly on this point if someone can give me a link to something where Jon Stewart actually answers a question regarding this instead of dodging it or deflecting by saying that what he does is primarily entertainment, because regardless of what he may consider himself to be, the way people consider him a newsman suggests that many people don't take his words as primarily humorous (and this obviously extends to several commentators and talk show hosts))). By getting this information from sources that paint the picture in black and white, i feel everyone else becomes pretty black and white in how it handles many of its issues and now even politicians take hard stances without much hope of compromise. It all seems somewhat depressing, undermining a political system in favor of advertising

I get the motivations of it. I obviously run ads myself, but I'm not run by a news organization that determines what to broadcast based on ratings. The only one who can cancel me is me, and I don't intend to compromise the ideas in this comic due to advertisers.

I'm not sure the same can be said with any broadcast news. Heck, a half-hearted apology went up over Fluke when advertisers started bailing.

Boiling all this down, all I want to say is that just because someone (like Star for example) says something the loudest or is the most popular, doesn't make them right (though they certainly could be). Try to think about sensitive issues, such as politics, rather than just accept someone's opinion.

-D