CBS Is Rethinking Its Life Choices

Fittingly, Oliver Darcy’s report on the reaction at CBS quotes an unnamed “prominent journalist outside CBS” saying, “Good night and bad luck” — a reference to Murrow’s tagline that is currently being adapted by George Clooney in a stage revival of the 2005 film Good Night and Good Luck about Murrow and Joe McCarthy.

What’s interesting, and suggests a broader rethinking of the future of CBS, is that this comes six weeks after Paramount and CBS pulled the plug on The Late Show and sacked its host, Stephen Colbert. Taken together, the two moves imply that an ossified, closed-minded, smug, and unreflective liberalism just doesn’t have a future in attracting a mass audience in today’s shifting media landscape.