The election of Trump provides Saturday Night Live with a lot of new material, and the cast did not disappoint. Their parody of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 was spot on; reality meets comedy.
Saturday Night Live parody of Anderson Cooper 360
Saturday Night Live encapsulated the state of our cable news with one parody that did not deviate too far from our reality. The pseudo cast of characters included Anderson Cooper and panelists Gloria Borger, David Axelrod, Dana Bash, Kayleigh McEnany, and Van Jones.
While the skit was hilarious, it illustrated four important points.
The first is the overuse of the term “Breaking News.” Cooper introduced every new story with breaking news moniker. It cheapens the phrase which eventually makes the audience tune out.
The second is the repetitious nature of cable news coverage. Many stories go unreported on air since news and cable news in particular loop a few stories as they ignore most.
The third is the normalization of a character’s past to move on to another subject on the same character. The stories about Donald Trump was coming so fast that each previous story was normalized and mostly ignored going forward. In an objective world, the stories are additive.
The fourth is the packaging of these cable shows. When Anderson Cooper, the robot failed, Jake Tapper became the drop in replacement. The format stayed the same. The shallow coverage remained.
Saturday Night Live deserves an A+ for this one for its excellent portrayal of cable news.