Every so often you come across an idea so bad it forces you to reexamine everything you know about your life and your approach to the world.
If you haven't experience this for yourself, I invite you to take a look at CNN+.
Long past its peak of journalistic standards and practices, CNN+ takes all the pablum of endless pedantic takes on our culture of constant crisis and further marginalizes any outside chance of contributing substance to our national discourse. And where CNN takes measures to delay resolution on important issues the important issues of the day to extend overlapping crisises of conscience beyond the next commercial break, CNN+ provides opportunities for journalists to have the freedom to ask the hard questions that cable news sponsors would never stomach for like, "which TV Sitcom parents would Henry Winkler and Andersen Cooper choose for themselves?" You know the edgy stuff that you can't find anywhere else.
Let's keep in mind that CNN's staff and "entertainment personalities" are locked into contracts and may not always be able to reject horrible, ethics dismantling, ideas that openly and derisively lampoon the very concept of journalistic integrity (when attached to huge wads of cash).
As with any wake, there are many emotions about the death of journalism, some choose to celebrate its life, some mourn its loss, some grapple with the reality that it's gone and we may never see anything like it again in our lifetime and of course there are more than a few grubbing over how much of the estate is even left to sell.
The very idea that we turn to the "news" as an escape from facing reality is a big clue about where we are in history of the human race.
And that's the way it is.