CNBC – No Business Like Show Business

The great Italiam theorist Antonio Gramsci did not have television available when he made the following comments in 1916 about newspapers, but his advice to people about newspapers works equally well for television:

Above all, the worker must resolutely reject any solidarity with a bourgeois newspaper. And he must always, always, always remember that the bourgeois newspaper (whatever its hue) is an instrument of struggle motivated by ideas and interests that are contrary to his. Everything that is published is influenced by one idea: that of serving the dominant class.

Over at Smashing Telly, the reaction over a recent episode of “The Daily Show” complements Gramsci’s points above:

US network and cable news are an embarrassment, a children’s view of the world based upon geographical and historical ignorance delivered by people who look like Long Island realtors and whose opinions should be deemed equally suspect.