Walt Mossberg asked CBS CEO Les Moonves about Al Gore’s critique of television culture in his new book, The Assault on Reason. “Gore said that TV in general has basically destroyed American democracy. He says the Internet is the hope –”
Moonves interrupted: “That’s because he created it.”
Mossberg grimaced. There was not a single laugh in the room.
It is one sign of hope for the world today that this dead old line — discredited eons ago — now evokes only contempt.
Meanwhile, here is Moonves’s stirring defense of his medium against the complaint that TV caters to too much of our love for celebrity news at the expense of more pressing issues: “I think there are other things that may have hurt the fabric of democracy more than the media.”