Posted on 08/18/2012 6:54:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
What’s wrong with CNN? Rewind to 1991, the first night of the First Gulf War. American attack planes are dropping laser-guided missiles on strategic targets in Baghdad. CNN, with Peter Arnett reporting from Baghdad and Bernard Shaw anchoring from the US, owns the story. So much so that then-NBC News President Michael Gartner gave up on his own news division’s coverage of the outbreak of war and ordered them to carry the CNN feed for the remainder of the evening. (A decision, predictably, that led to Mr. Gartner’s eventual dismissal).
CNN was in that position because its founder, Ted Turner, imagined that it might be, someday. When the day came, it wasn’t luck. It was, to alter Branch Rickey’s phrase, the residue of Mr. Turner’s leadership.
Fast forward to last Sunday. There’s an episode of the “Newsroom” airing on HBO. In it, a “Newsroom” producer shows his fellow “Newsroom” staffers how CNN Headline News anchor Nancy Grace and her production staff shamelessly hype and distort the Casey Anthony story for maximum ratings impact. No one at Time Warner (which owns HBO and CNN) said to anyone at HBO: “you can’t say that about another division of this company.” What was the point? What “Newsroom” creator Aaron Sorkin wrote into last Sunday’s episode wasn’t wrong. It was true.
In a little over twenty years, CNN devolved from the most important television news organization in the world to another channel to skim through or skip over.
But don’t take my word for it. Look at the numbers. In the second quarter of this year, CNN’s primetime ratings basically collapsed. The overall numbers were down horribly and the key demos were down horribly. It was so bad that in primetime, CNN was losing to CNN Headline News, which is a little bit like the Yankees losing to their farm team in Columbus Scranton, every night.
On the day that this ratings news hit the wire, a ritual sacrifice was performed: the executive in charge, Jim Walton, “retired.” Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent, to whom CNN reports, was tasked with the assignment of finding a replacement. The search, as they say, is ongoing.
On one level, CNN’s woes are “first world problems.” CNN Worldwide is profitable (Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes told analysts it would earn $600 million this year). CNN International is respected, widely watched and has the advertising rate cards that prove it. The network in general has a boatload of talented, dedicated, hard-working employees. If war breaks out in two places at once, CNN is probably the only US television news organization that can actually cover both in any kind of depth. And it has, at least in theory, access to the vast journalistic capabilities of the Time Warner magazine group and the (documentary) film-making capabilities of HBO. In short, it possesses the two essential elements of media success: richness and reach.
What it doesn’t have is leadership. It isn’t likely to get it any time soon.
The internal politics of Time Warner explain why. Most of the various division heads would like to have Mr. Bewkes’s job. They can’t, of course, challenge Mr. Bewkes directly. Bad manners, corporate suicide. They can, however, moan about the sorry state of one of the company’s flagship brands (CNN) to selected friends in the press. And they can “offer to help” fix this problem. And make that known to selected friends in the press. All the while, they will be doing everything they can to ensure that a suitably pliant executive is found to replace Mr. Walton. Even Mr. Kent, to whom the new executive will report, has an interest in finding someone who won’t overshadow him.
So the internal politics seem destined to produce more of the same. Without strong leadership, the fiefdoms maintain their power, the supposed “stars” stay in their places (not one hour of Wolf Blitzer, two!) and the network’s programming drifts along. Yes, the US ratings are embarrassing in primetime. Yes, viewership is actually down in an election year. Yes, the website isn’t nearly as good as it could be. Yes, but so what?
This seems to be CNN’s answer to most everything: “yes, but so what?” Consider Erin Burnett, who could be a superstar if properly produced. What does CNN do with her? They give her a not-very-well-produced show in the 7pm slot. To no one’s surprise, it doesn’t do very well.
The thinking, apparently, is that tinkering with the primetime line-up of Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan would be too risky. The exact opposite is true. It couldn’t possibly be less risky to move Ms. Burnett to 9pm and build a real show around her. Almost no one watches Piers Morgan. He is universally un-beloved.
Yes, but so what?
Mr. Bewkes would be well-advised to blow this all up and start fresh. He might begin by floating a story that he is considering hiring someone like Roger Ailes to come fix things at CNN. He might even suggest hiring Mr. Ailes himself, just for fun. That would certainly get everyone’s attention.
The prospect of Mr. Ailes arriving at CNN Headquarters in New York with his wild-eyed band of FNC Hell’s Angels is probably too good to be true. Sad to say. But say this for Mr. Ailes: if he ever did get the job, he would say: “we’re taking this beach, in this way and if you don’t want to help, then get the hell out of the way. ” He would actually lead.
CNN needs that kind of leadership. If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter. But CNN is an important resource, nationally and internationally. CNN actually matters.
How does that rate on the Warp scale?
A bit over warp factor 2.
Morgan makes King look smart and unbiased. That's hard to do!!!!
LOL. I saw the chart but not your final sentence, so I guesstimated, and came up with the same...roughly Warp 2.
All of which means that BOTH Spock and Data are much smarter than me because they’d have it to at least three decimal places. :>)
LOL. I saw the chart but not your final sentence, so I guesstimated, and came up with the same...roughly Warp 2.
All of which means that BOTH Spock and Data are much smarter than me because they’d have it to at least three decimal places. :>)
BSNBC sucked all their idiots away from them.
The CNN reporter in the video is Charles Jaco. Can you believe that Jaco is still on television? He’s a reporter at a TV station in St Louis. Hates the Tea Party.........
Media Abuse: Reporter Charles Jaco Physically Intimidates Tea Party Activist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK9xCNaONgo
I don't know how he ever even had the nerve to show his face on TV. I always switch channels when he comes on. He also said that Obama care was a bill that had some truly wonderful stuff in it, and the opponents had been very successful at smearing it.
I don't care for him at all.
I wish i was that beamer
Janeway got the ship back...in a classic Star Trek “make science fiction crap up” fashion. Rent or stream the final 2 hour episode from Netflix for all the cheesy details. Star Fleet’s section 31 agents and the Fleet’s temporal intelligence agents would have been very “upset” at Janeway’s time travel antics!
You forgot the transwarp scale!
Remember the cross eyed blond girl, Bobbie Batista (?).....She had Sean Hannity at the end of the stage and she used to put him down at every chance she got. Where’s Bobbie today??? Where’s Sean today???
I lived in Germany from 1993 to 2009, and CNN International was one of the only two news channels I could get (Sky News with strictly UK news was the other). Up until the Bush era....CNN International was mostly neutral and just pure news. Then, it went to a radical change. Within a year or two...it was full-turbo anti-US. The journalist (I hate to even use that word) would go through a four-minute interview with someone spouting off a very negative view of the US, and then he’d just look at the screen with ‘puppy eyes’....giving you the impression that you just had to believe the interview. It was some kind of comical mental news attempt.
Who watches CNN International? To be truthful....most regular people never watch it....it’s strictly the university-educated and elite. They truly believe everything that CNN International puts on. It’s like a propaganda machine.
After her CNN gig she popped up here in Toronto doing a local radio show. According to wiki she moved here because of her now ex hubby. I never saw her but she also did television up here for CBC newsworld. What she is doing today or where I have no idea but if I see her on the street one day I’ll say hi for you. :) The following is her from her wiki entry.
Post-CNN
After CNN, Russell wrote her autobiography, How to Win Friends, Kick Ass, and Influence People (1999), and is a licensed private detective and sheriff’s deputy. She has 2nd degree black belt in the martial art of Choi Kwang- do. She also made hand-crafted lampshades and sold them from her Web site, but she stopped the business at least temporarily since moving to Canada in 2005.
Russell and her then-husband, Thomas Beck, moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada in July 2005. Beck, a German citizen, is the current president and CEO of the Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce. They separated in 2010. In May 2006, Russell became a news reader for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s CBC Newsworld all-news cable channel. She has said previously that her goal was to ease herself into the role of news reader part-time and, as a result, can be seen during the late afternoon and evening hours of Fridays anchoring CBC Newsworld’s one-minute headline-style newscast (CBC News: Now) at the top of every hour, between 6 p.m. and 12 a.m. EST. During the summer months, she also fills in as news anchor of various news programs, including the Newsworld’s flagship CBC News: Today.
Russell presented on CFRB-1010 AM radio in Toronto for her new Saturday afternoon show from 2008 to 2010. In 2008 she hosted the 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. time slot.
Yeah, the first time I watched Fox News I was amazed, it actually was “fair and balanced”. I was even convinced for a while that it leaned slightly to the right. Now I see it as merely a foil for the others like MSNothingButCrap. It is amazing to see them point to Fox as the demonic news source possessed by extreme right wing devils when many conservatives have stopped watching Fox because it is TOO MUCH LIKE MSNBC. Shep is a clown as is BOR and Hannity is too much like a kiddie show to be taken seriously. Hannity on the radio is bizarre with the same black Democrat callers constantly telling Hannity how wrong he is but they love him dearly anyway while he gives them free gifts for calling in and making no sense. This is interspersed with repetitions of how Hannity worked so hard to get through school. I hardly ever turn on a radio any longer, there is no music worth hearing and now almost no talk worth hearing.
I do not remember her. On that awful December day in 1999, when Clinton was acquitted in the Senate, I ripped out cable and have never looked back.
WOW!! I’m impressed!!!
Nah, they've pretty much generalized their bias these days. Communist News Network is a better fit.
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