You know, CNN is really sinking low to compete with the likes of Fox News. A typical day of watching CNN finds a newscaster insulting and interupting everyone--she's a legal expert and goes on and on about Micheal Jackson. The entertainment segment has a bunch of faux trendy model types interupting each other while discussing movies. As the day wears on we get attractive talking heads spouting off and reveling in the declines of Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, Terri Schiavo, etc. Later, we get wall to wall coverage of missing children (who all conveniently happen to be white and pristine) when hundreds of people go missing every day. We get the the complete inadequate coverage of important stories like the British memo, what's really happening in Iraq, the distruction of the Environent and subsequent proposed distruction of the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge... Let's face it, the list of complaints goes on and on.
As for international issues it seems that those matters (other than terrorism) do not really come on the radar screen. CNN is seems to be not interested in anything other than cheap formats and sensationalistic topics (UFO's, feral children, etc). We get yelling and screaming and repetition of the obvious in such a dumbed-down fourth grade level of comprehension that it simply becomes an obvious broken record which is set on volume level eleven and has to be switched off.
It wasn't always that way. CNN used to be more insightful. There was no yelling or smirking on the tube. Well, sometimes there was but but it wasn’t on all the time. Sometimes, it was actually about news.
Now it's all about bombast. We’ve become a nation of bombastic ranters. Whatever happened to long discussions by policy makers around round tables. Whatever happened to actually teaching things. Whatever happened to, well, real news. CNN doesn’t present this. Like Fox News, they’re about talking heads, screaming at each other saying nothing new in the last five years
This is particularly troubling regarding CNN, which has always claimed that during major events viewers turn in greater numbers to CNN, which calls itself "the most trusted name" in cable news (reminds you of another famous slogan, right?).
There seems to be a growing sense that CNN is merely imitating Fox but not quite getting it right. Even Ted Turner himself has voiced complaints that some shows are "just awful." CNN correspondents have complained that Lou Dobbs, on "Moneyline," has been, get this
"issuing conservative opinions". Well, no kidding, Sherlock. Just one incident finds Dobbs issuing the statement, "Isn't it time someone said something straightforwardly?" before denouncing France as "obstructionist".
Someone should tell the executives at CNN that it's not worth having higher ratings if you have dumb down to get them. As Allan Dodds Frank, an investigative reporter for Moneyline who had won the Gerald R. Loeb Award in 2002 and who at fifty-five, had been a CNN correspondent for eight years, and who was laid off in a CNN shakeup said, "The first rule of zoology--or journalism--is: You can't out-ape the monkey.".
Frankly, we're watching the formerly monopolistic all-news channel slowly drift to the right since 9/11 and the rise of Fox -- drift is what tends to happen when a rudderless ship is carried by the prevailing winds. In an odd way, it almost makes one respect Fox
News, which at least lets you know, with a metaphorical wink, where it's coming from (minus the "fair and balanced" hype). Really, who thinks O'Reilly is independent. C'mon.
Once upon a time CNN could have been thought of as presenting an objective, if slightly staid, version of the news. Lately, however, the acquisition of new chiefs come galloping in to save the News Giant, have left us with a sad and sorry Fox News wannabe that
actively promotes sensationalism, rudeness, and one sided news coverage of important issues. Many old time viewers are being forced to turn elsewhere for their news.
We suppose it's hard to place all of the blame on the news networks. After all it is a business (whatever happened to journalistic integrity and principal...oh well who cares about that anyway, right?). The public has shown through its viewing habits that it wants to watch this type of sensationalism and dumbing down content. One could say we really only have ourselves to blame. After all, if enough people could be convinced to avoid sensationalistic news coverage instead of craving it, this could make a visible change in the ratings
patterns that would convince advertisers and producers that the American public doesn't want a steady diet of blood and gore on the news.
We won't hold our breath.
Last one over to the BBC is a rotten egg...
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