Comment Potential solution. (Score 1) 784
Assumption: the 'product' of a news channel is the education of their viewers.
Schools are given scores based on how they educate students.
Seems a similar grading scheme could be applied to news organizations based on surveys of their 'regular' viewers (students).
It would be valuable for [news channel] to be able to say "our viewers are smarter, and better informed than the other guys when it comes to facts."
Leading to the slogan: don't be dumb, watch [our channel]. Our viewers scored 75% smarter than the other guys.
Seriously - we should be able to grade news channels based on the job they do, or rather *should* do.
This grading could even be segmented further into topics revolving science, elections, politics, religion, etc. Hopefully this would lead to less time being spent on analysis, or at least more fact checking on pundits and their outrageous claims.
On a personal note: I'm normally a CNN viewer. I agreed to watch Fox for a day because my parents told me "how much better it was".
The first story of the day was about the LHC and it was titled "Doomsday machine starts tomorrow" after that I turned off the TV. I booted up world of warcraft and ignored the news for the rest of the day! it was fun.. I should do that more often.