July 4 On Cable News: Dunk Tanks on Fox, Prisons on MSNBC, And Science on CNN

By Alex Weprin 

The Independence Day holiday is something of a wash for cable news. With many viewers traveling or attending barbecues (even on a Wednesday), ratings are typically far lower than your average day.

This will often lead to some… interesting… programming decisions. On Fox News Channel’s ‘The Five,” the panelists decided to forgo a segment talking about politics and news, and instead throw Bob Beckel in a dunk tank, and get him wet. Which panelist succeeded in “dunking the liberal”? Watch for yourself:

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MSNBC meanwhile did what it usually does on holidays, televising a “Lockup” marathon.

Of course, there was also some real news. Scientists at CERN announced the discovery of the elusive Higgs-Boson, colloquially known as “The God Particle.” For more than 40 years scientists have been looking for evidence of the particle, which endows mass to other particles, like the particles that make up the earth, and humans, and pretty much everything else in the universe.

The best coverage on cable news was on CNN, which had a feature package ready to go, and also interviewed scientists to help explain the rather significant implications of the discovery.

WATCH:

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