Chomsky is one that just keeps on coming back when it comes to various things he has said/written. When it comes to the shout shows on places like CNN, the notion of “concision” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concision_(media_studies) ) is one I think about all the time.

The beauty of concision, you know, saying a couple of sentences between two commercials, the beauty of that is you can only repeat conventional thoughts. Suppose I go on Nightline, whatever it is, two minutes, and I say Gaddafi is a terrorist, Khomeini is a murderer etcetera etcetera… I don’t need any evidence, everyone just nods. On the other hand, suppose you’re saying something that isn’t just regurgitating conventional pieties, suppose you say something that’s the least bit unexpected or controversial, people will quite reasonably expect to know what you mean. If you said that you’d better have a reason, better have some evidence. You can’t give evidence if you’re stuck with concision. That’s the genius of this structural constraint.[2]

The other thing he said was something that I’ve been thinking a lot about when it comes to any discussions done on “liberal media” regarding Kirk:

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum…

It’s interesting because what Kimmel said was in no way outside of that limited spectrum.