When Terry Gross asked him, in 2012, why he had published the faux-commentary book "America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't," Colbert explained, "My character is based on news punditry, the masters of opinion in cable news, and they all have books".
Stewart, through his criticism of "Crossfire," Fox News, and opinion-based cable news, finally demolished the pretense that cable-news talking heads had any more claim to authoritativeness than late-night talk-show hosts.
Nobody has a constitutional right to give his or her opinions on cable television.
"I think it's sad we're losing so much diversity of thought and opinion," Ted Turner, the cable television pioneer and largest shareholder in AOL Time Warner, said last month in a speech in California before cable television executives.
The program was the latest step in the evolution of opinion journalism on cable news.
With an abundance of opinion on the cable news channels now, Mr. Jurkowitz said, the model increasingly looks dated.
MSNBC's prime-time schedule has "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," "The Abrams Report" and "Scarborough Country," which all possess the typical news and opinion DNA of cable news.
"I'm going to be very candid here that I have some problems," Ms. Rosenworcel said in a Senate hearing this month when asked for her opinion on the cable box proposal.
An aide to President Bush sent a letter on Monday to the head of NBC News requesting a correction for what he deemed "deceitful editing" of an interview and complaining about the blurring of the lines between news on NBC and opinion on its cable news network MSNBC.
With each new opinion show on cable, our country gets that much more uninformed.
