All the news, fluffed up for easy consumption

So the big news this week is the debut of perky Katie Couric as host of the CBS Evening News. I pretty much stopped watching network televison about two decades ago, so I can't comment on the quality of their latest "infotainment" product. But it appears that they introduced a new segment, "freeSpeech", where they allow some blowhard a few minutes of airtime to blather. The latest was drug addict and liar Rush Limbaugh. The Truthdig.com website offered a link to the segment, which was a typical blast of "talent on loan from God" nonsense. Media Matters had links to send comments to CBS, so why not. I sent the following:

TO: CBS NEWS WITH KATIE COURIC
Rush Limbaugh?!? Rush Limbaugh!?! You give time to that documented dissembler and propagandist? Shameful. Surely there have to be more insightful commentators available to you, people who might offer a perspective that hasn't been offered repeatedly already. I might suggest: Katha Pollit, Michael Parenti, Ali Abunimah, Noam Chomsky, Ralph Nader, Amy Goodman, Alexander Cockburn, Dave Lindorff, etc. (Sigh, if only...I might start watching network TV again.) OK, I know those examples are "outside the range" of acceptable opinion offered on network television, but surely any of the hosts of Air America Radio--which outrates Limbaugh in most markets where they match up, Rush the liar conquers the empty backwaters--are tame enough to appear on CBS Evening News with Katie Couric.

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