Era of Ignorance

Are we living in a unique era?  Much is being made lately of Donald Trump's stance on Obama's birthplace.  Who the hell died to make Donald Trump seemingly relevant?  Bad hair and a played out reality TV show really should not earn someone any air time.  Why do the media give such folks platforms?

I guess the answer is the cable revolution--heaps and heaps of channels with 24 hours to fill with programming every day.  So, I guess this leads to the fundamental question: the proliferation of the networks have given us Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Justified, the Shield, and so much other TV-goodness but it also allows the dreck to get recycled so that the news programs are stuck with displaying people who have been discredited multiple times (Eliot Spitzer!), so is it worth it?  Does the great TV offset the damage these folks are doing to the world?

What say you?