Frank Magid, RIP

We should note the passing of Frank Magid, the Iowa "consultant" almost single-handedly responsible for the demise of journalism on television and the substitution of happy talk news.

He became rich by understanding that numbskulls vastly outnumber smart people and advising television stations (and later networks) on how to win the maximum number of fools to the nightly newscasts. He did it with "surveys." He asked viewers if anchor Jane was prettier than anchor Jill. He had folks discuss whether Dan really looked nicer in a sweater .

The sum total of his recorded wisdom about news broadcast content was: "If any story runs more than one minute, the Russians had better be in New York Harbor."

It worked, and the advertisers loved it. This explains things like "L'Oreal, because you're worth it."

Frank, not to speak ill of the dead, and I appreciate that lunch back in the '70s, but you have one Hell of a lot to answer for.