NEW YORK, April 23 (DPI) — Longtime television news commentator Jack Cafferty is penning an effective blog that’s prompting a steady flow of reader comments, one of the better examples of traditional TV news outfits deploying the Internet to boost an audience.
Cafferty, sharper edged than most television-news personalities and, after years as a newsman, now a full-time CNN commentator, asks simple, incisive questions of his readers. The blog posts reflect his independent, somewhat libertarian views, and the posts conclude with invitations for reader replies. He adds an incentive: The best replies will be read on the air, which of course is a low-cost way for the network to get viewers invested in Cafferty’s show.
Today’s question by Cafferty — What does it mean when one in seven people in the US gets Food Stamps? — spurred 182 replies by 5pm Monday. Most of the comments reflected our partisan times, and were largely split down predictable lines — about a third of the comments declared that the explosion in Food Stamp recipients was a function of Republican insensitivity, indifference or Bush-era economic policies. Another third expressed conviction that the Obama administration had mismanaged the economy — and another substantial group commented that the now-45 million recipients of Food Stamps reflected the general decline in America.