cable news

If ever there was a political event to lay bare the partisan ideologies of the cable news media, the Wisconsin recall was it. MSNBC was blatantly rooting for Tom Barrett to defeat Gov. Scott Walker, while Fox News was blatantly rooting for Walker. Given this blatant partisan coverage, it was absolutely impossible to watch either network and weed out any clear understanding of the actual significance of the event, much less what effect it would actually have on the 2012 presidential election.

NEW YORK (AP) — MSNBC host Chris Hayes says he’s sorry for his comments about his discomfort with the use of the word “heroes” to describe fallen soldiers. Hayes made […]

Some viewers, including conservative activists, are upset over a strategy that has been under way at the news network for some time — a “course correction,” as Fox chief Roger Ailes put it last fall — with the network distancing itself from the tea party cheerleading that characterized the first two years of President Obama’s presidency. Lately, Fox has increasingly promoted its straight-news talent in the press and conducted some of the toughest interviews and debates of the Republican primary season. Just last week, it hired the openly gay liberal activist Sally Kohn as a contributor.

Cable news is now the top regular source for campaign news, with 36% of Americans say they are regularly learning about the candidates or campaign on those networks. The long-term decline in the number of Americans who get campaign news from local and network TV has steepened as a consequence of the fact that fewer people are closely following the campaign compared to four years ago when there were contested primaries in both political parties.

CNN will launch two new morning shows Monday, a week ahead of CBS’s revamped morning show. Early Start with Ashleigh Banfield and Zoraida Sambolin will air weekdays at 5-7 a.m., followed by Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien, which will air from 7 to 9.