The cable-news industry that Americans know today is a cautionary tale in what happens when democracy collides with consumerism. For years, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News raked in profits while amplifying partisan rancor in varying ways. Starting in 2015, CNN pumped its ratings by playing up Donald Trump, whose presidency then buoyed all three cable-news giants. But now CNN is in turmoil after a recent change of ownership and the departure of its president, Chris Licht, after 15 months. After the 2020 election, Fox News amplified false claims about voting irregularities rather than offend its disproportionately pro-Trump audience—and subsequently settled a defamation suit by Dominion Voting Systems for more than $700 million. These cable-news networks have long relied on receiving fees from cable companies for each basic-cable subscriber. Now the networks need to replace that income with subscription dollars as more and more Americans cut the cord, and the scramble for money does not bode well for investment in deep, factual reporting about the United States and the rest of the world.
Cable news, in short, is in a crisis—but not a new one. Indeed, the story goes back years, to a time before Fox News or CNN was even founded. More than half a century ago, the United States had decisions to make about how the emerging medium would operate: Should the government strictly regulate it as a common carrier to cultivate a more informed and engaged citizenry, or should cable be a for-profit industry driven by the bottom line?
Richard Nixon settled the issue in the latter direction. The electronic-media landscape has always existed within parameters determined by regulators, and politicians bend regulatory policy to their own political needs. That’s what Nixon did with cable. His motives were mixed: A believer in free competition, he also despised the main broadcast networks and believed that embattled politicians like him could more easily manipulate a fragmented television world. Some of the paths not taken during cable’s early development should remind us that the current cable-news landscape was not inevitable—and that largely forgotten government decisions from earlier eras turned out to have enormous consequences.