“When a broadcasting executive gets out of bed in the morning, before his foot hits the floor, his thoughts are ratings. ‘What are my ratings?’ Not unlike Wall Street people, who get their—and CEOs, their first thought is the price of their stock,” – Phil Donahue, reflecting on his firing from MSNBC for being too anti-war.
We'll be covering the freedom of the press and the media soon enough and this will be a recurring theme. Much of what we see on the news is based on what attracts the most viewers - or at least does not turn them away. There's lot of soul searching going on since we just passed the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. Some are wondering why so many media sources, even liberal ones, were so gung-ho about it. Apparently opposing it seemed bad for business at the time.
