Using expletives during a cable news segment these days guarantees one thing more than anything else: Lots of exposure afterward.
{mosads}It used to be considered taboo to drop a swear word on live television. Perhaps that would even lead a producer or executive to reprimand the person responsible.
Now it’s practically embraced — not publicly, of course — and having that kind of so-called edge is the kind of thing cable news is about these days: Causing a stir, basic rules of decorum be damned.
Exhibit A today is Liz Mair, who calls herself a communications expert, new media adviser, political consultant and blogger on her website. She’s also president of a PR firm with her name on it.
Mair appeared on CNN last night to talk about — who else? — Donald Trump, as a guest of Anderson Cooper.
So for Mair, this is a nice opportunity to promote her expertise in front of 1.4 million people or so — Cooper’s total viewers the night prior. And if she can say something unique that gets her appearance carried elsewhere afterward, even better.
At 8 p.m., Mair proceeded to provide some pretty standard analysis about the state of the GOP presidential race throughout. But toward the end of the interview, she decided to go with a description of Trump that certainly looked and sounded rehearsed:
Cooper: “Have you lost any hope that the GOP can rein Trump in?”
Mair: “I lost all hope of that, probably seven, eight months ago, quite candidly. His message is being a loudmouthed dick, basically, and going out there and offending people and then engaging in a bunch of airing of grievances.’”
Cooper didn’t flinch or react to Mair’s characterization.
And afterward, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone more proud of herself than Mair. How proud? She retweeted and tweeted footage of, or reaction to, her Cooper appearance no less than 14 times after sharing with her 30,000 followers what she had done on CNN almost immediately afterward.
For its part, CNN had Mair back on in for more deep thoughts at 10:30 p.m. And since then, everyone from the Drudge Report to Mediaite to Slate had done stories on Mair’s big moment.
Slate headline: “After 452,365 Inane Interviews, CNN Guest Finally Gives Right Answer on Trump: ‘His Message Is Being a Loudmouthed Dick.’ “
A week earlier, Fareed Zakaria — a TV veteran — called Trump a “bullshit artist” on CNN, which is rich coming from one of the better-known plagiarizers out there.
Back to Mair, here’s a guarantee:
She will now become a familiar face on cable news over the next few days, even weeks.
Hell, she may even be offered a contract.
Is she right about Trump? That depends on how one plans on voting. But there were plenty of other ways to say what she said.
And now she’ll be rewarded with more airtime in front of millions and therefore more ways to promote her business.
This is just how it works in today’s cable news landscape.
And it’s sad.
Concha is a media reporter for The Hill.
The views expressed by Contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.
