WHY IS SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE NEWS?
Every Sunday morning, the Associated Press has a news story about the prior evening’s Saturday Night Live show. Today’s story is headlined Host Alec Baldwin, ‘SNL’ cast skewer Trump White House. Well, yes, they do that every week. Last Sunday’s AP headline told us that someone I had never heard of–Melissa McCarthy–was mocking White House press secretary Sean Spicer. And it isn’t just the Associated Press. Many news outlets breathlessly recount the latest anti-Trump skits on SNL.
So, why is this news? I don’t recall that SNL’s weekly dose of liberal spin was news during the Obama administration. Saturday Night Live is a comedy show. Comedy isn’t generally considered newsworthy. Is it because so many people are watching? Because SNL’s ratings are so stratospherically high? Evidently not: Saturday Night Live has a below average audience, ranking 139th out of 196 television programs during the 2015-2016 season.
The only explanation is that Democratic Party news outlets report on Saturday Night Live skits because they want to amplify SNL’s anti-Trump message. “Respectable” news outlets like the AP can’t publish absurd comedy skits ripping President Trump, much as they might like to. But by covering Saturday Night Live, they turn such meaningless attacks into fake “news.”
Here is some real news: Sean Spicer’s daily press briefings, broadcast live, are being watched by around 4.3 million people. That is several times the audience for Saturday Night Live. I assume viewership will die down once we get past the opening weeks of the Trump administration, but still, it’s remarkable. Once again, the Democratic Party press, in its desperate yearning to bring down the Trump administration, is missing the real story.
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