My dad was not right-wing, but he went from us watching The McNeil-Lehrer Newshour once a day in the 80s to being glued to CNN and MSNBC all day. Almost literally all day once he retired. They found an American addiction and learned to feed it. For my dad, and I think a lot of people, it was a combination of the first Iraq war and the OJ live chase. Suddenly you could watch something really amazing that was news in real time whenever you turned on your TV.