"I had the Fox News Channel on when the news of McCain’s passing broke, after 8 PM ET. Within seconds of each other, all three major cable news channels went to non-stop coverage of McCain’s life and death, most of it commercial free for the first several hours.
. . .
"This news release suggested that the story of McCain’s passing had legs and would dominate FNC’s, and presumably the other news channels’, coverage into the overnight hours and beyond.
"After Jeanine Pirro went off the air at 10 PM ET, I became frustrated with Fox News’s coverage – it seemed to settle into an endless repetitive loop of a small number of still photos and short video clips from McCain’s life with audio of reporting by in-studio anchor Jon Scott and commentary by several guests – all of it and them almost entirely off-camera." . . .
Obviously not a fan of CNN these days, I did appreciate this production, especially coming so soon as it did after McCain’s passing. It was, after all, a serious attempt to review his life’s high, and a few low, points and to place him into (CNN’s) perspective with new interviews conducted by Bash with people like Hillary Clinton. The use of archival film, video clips, and still photos also added a lot to its value.
With mainstream media biographical programs like this one, I tend to take the narration and predictable hagiographic point of view with a grain of salt, while I pay closer attention to the soundbites and historic archival material documenting the past that helps me to form or expand my own opinions. The interviews confirmed that, in death as during his long life in national politics, John McCain was the Democrats’, and the media’s, favorite Republican.