I watch Pardon The Interruption like my forefathers would watch the 6 p.m. nightly news. I was with it from the very beginning in October of 2001 when I was working in Missouri. It served as a connection to those I left in the East and the West.

The show is still on today because the format was revolutionary with its simplicity, taking what was already done and doing it so well that the industry was forced to adjust and mimic.

It was copied openly by Fox Sports and modestly by countless other sports networks. But while the style was important, the banter between Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon is what puts it over the top.

Monday, Sept. 27, 2010 — Washington, D.C. — ABC Bureau Studios — The debut of Pardon the Interruption in high definition with co-hosts Tony Kornheiser (l) and Michael Wilbon

It’s two respected journalists debating a specific topic intelligently and with passion with a clock ticking down in the background. The two argued as natural friends do, a key to it that seemingly hasn’t been understood, hence the problem.

See, when you argue with a friend, you tend to not hold back. But you still respect the person across from you, so regardless what is said in the moment you’re still friends afterwards. A true friend knows the lines you can and can’t cross.

That is essentially what is wrong with most of the versions of the show. A structured argument with numerous topics is what you get, but when missing the ‘between friends’  part things eventually don’t work.

Things haven’t necessary worked for many of the attempts, but it does work to some extent. And work makes money. It’s the root of all evil and what polutted the 6 p.m. nightly news a generation ago.

In the mid-1950s there was an emphatic shift in network advertising to firms manufacturing small-ticket consumer … television sponsorship was useful not for corporate identification, but solely for product advertising.

Sole sponsors like General Motors and Texaco slowly went away and the pursuit of more cash led to more sponsors and a realization that the network news division could be looked to make just as much money as the entertainment division.

Or maybe it was just that the men and women that used to provide the news were ‘trusted’. Walter Cronkite was considered the most trusted man in America for a good 10-15 years starting in the 1960s. And for 20 years, the Big 3 trotted out Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather.

And then…

The vacuum was filled not by anchors but channels. Cable, the 24-hour ability suddenly extended away from just specific goods and services to public personal entertainment. And even with this, sports came first as ESPN launched September 7, 1979; CNN June 1, 1980.

That information was read at Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia that provides general information on any topic. While it is free-format and open to the public, we all seemingly accept what it says to be true. The same would have once been the network news, but no more.

If no one trusts, then no one is willing to hear an opposing side. In business, you don’t trust the other person. But you do have some form of respect, otherwise you wouldn’t be doing business with them at all.

Kornheiser and Wilbon have that trust and we enjoy their arguments, regardless what they are talking about.

But they do get it right. Kornheiser says it right from the beginning; anyone can have a show. And since this format was successful, anyone can argue about anything and that will serve as entertainment. So news shows don’t just provide the news anymore.

They provide varying opinions about the news, arguing back and forth in short timed segments and move on to another topic. And while PTI is just 30 minutes, some networks have 24 hours they’re looking to fill.

And since there is no trust, there is no universally accepted base for everyone like Cronkite and the Big 3 provided. So instead of a solid wood block of information, you get Play-do that you can craft and create into whatever narrative you want.

And while there’s merit in saying you should always craft your own narrative, there is only one North Star. If you wake up thinking Beta Camelopardalis or Alpha Cephei is Polaris, then all your decisions are off-center and that’s the truth.