Opinion of Today

On cable TV and in online outlets, the quarantine is not so carefully observed.

In fact, strange mish-mash of news and opinion in today's media ecosystem has led people to be even more confused on what journalism and journalists are meant to do.

Here’s a 2009 clip from the Daily Show, during Jon Stewart's era, taking on Fox News’ labeling of what is news, and what is not, at a time when most of the arguments about the blurring between news and opinion were fought on cable TV.

We could argue about whether Fox is more conservative than MSNBC is liberal. Whether you like Fox or not, the point is that Cable TV may have brought back the era of the partisan niche product.

Here's a more recent clip from CNN

In it, we get what could be referred to as a news story on controversy over the display of political messages within the Goodyear company, disparaging the use of those in support of messages that are connected to the President. It includes evidence (photo of a "training slide"), and a statement from Goodyear on it.

Then, there is a pivot to the response from the President, and examples of other companies he has called on followers to boycott. There is then another pivot wherein Don Lemon is brought in, to comment further.

While CNN has been known as a network that has tried to stick to straight news reporting, during the current Presidency, it has shown itself to be more hawkish in its stances, creating mash-ups like the one above. Is this journalism? Is it opinion? How would we know? Is Anderson Cooper a journalist or a commentator? What is Don Lemon's role?

While this may serve to affirm the opinions of audience members that agree with Cooper and Lemon, this largely confuses audience members.

Going back to our historical view of opinion journalism, Hamilton started the New York Post to attack Jefferson.

Jefferson paid a journalist (James Callendar) to write that his opponent was a mentally unbalanced hermaphrodite.

Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News in 1996, hiring a former Reagan white house official, Roger Ailes to run it. Now Fox generates a daily stream of conservative commentary.

MSNBC, a spin-off of NBC spawned by a partnership with Microsoft, now sounds familiar to the Democratic Party’s talking points.

They're on both sides, and have driven a deep divide when it comes to partisian arguments on the issues of the day -- but could there be some value in this?