By Sean Lyon..."“They don’t cover more stories than we do. They cover less—just the same thing over and over again all day long.” This line from Severance, spoken through the mouthpiece of the liberal media “Hoss” Sampson is very indicative of what we see today from the 24 hour cable news networks of the CNN and HLN ilk.
From my point of view a 24 hour news network is not a bad advancement. However, unlike, say, a 24 hour weather channel in which every detail can be objectively measured by trustworthy, accurate instruments, I realize that the introduction of the human element in the delivery of news brings with it laziness, bias, and because nobody wants to bore an audience, a bit of that old sensationalism.
Another character, Richard Lawrence, a onetime journalism student who because of cutbacks to his news “department” has to read day old news (what torture to a news man! You feel his pain at the onset of the novel), becomes disillusioned by how he sees others reporting the news. His observations of the falling standards compared to the way he was taught in college shatter his naivety and passion. He sarcastically questions whether someone has used two confirmed credible sources before airing an outrageous segment. But as Lawrence discovers and the author Kaempfer illustrates, it's a gun slinging atmosphere in the news, “Shoot first, ask questions later.”
Even though Severance is in large part a satire on political media and politically motivated characters, because of Zagorski's (and possibly Kaempfer's) indifference, bordering on annoyance, towards politics it remains just that, good, even handed satire, with the real punches aimed at the spurious journalism that fills these TV & radio shows. And unfortunately for us, that is not satire. Severance it's an accurate appraisal of the industry."
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