What a Difference a Year Makes at CNN, Part Deux
As we mentioned on Friday, back on January 19, 2011, during the height of the left’s brief “new civility” tirade, CNN, which for 23 years hosted a popular debate show called Crossfire (which featured crosshairs in its logo), had this treacly moment:
On Tuesday’s John King USA, CNN’s John King issued a prompt on-air apology minutes after a guest on his program used the term “crosshairs” during a segment: “We’re trying to get away from using that kind of language” (audio available here). This action stands in stark contrast to an incident over a year earlier where former anchor Rick Sanchez took four days to apologize for using a unconfirmed quote attributed to Rush Limbaugh.
Flash-forward to 2012. CNN newsreader Roland Martin recently returned to the network after being suspended as a result of a Tweet that was perceived by his employers as being homophobic. Adding to the strangeness of that outburst, Martin seemed so eager last year to join the rest of the leftwing MSM in its calls for a new civility.
Bear with me for a moment as I try to reconstruct the MSM’s collective “logic” during that period. In the wake of clip art that a crazed apolitical assassin likely never saw being determined by the MSM as somehow leading to the shooting of Democrat Senator Gabrielle Giffords and others in Tuscon, Martin wrote an editorial at CNN with the now ironic title, “After Tucson, will media tone it down?”
Note the first sentence in the quoted passage below:
If we are to embrace the notion of civility and humility in our discourse, that means not falling into our old habits. I was impressed that Roger Ailes, head of Fox News Channel, relayed to Russell Simmons’ GlobalGrind.com what he told his staff after the Tucson shootings: “I told all of our guys, shut up, tone it down, make your argument intellectually. You don’t have to do it with bombast. I hope the other side does that.”
Who knows if this edict will be photocopied and posted in the office of every Fox talk show host, and throughout its newsroom, to serve as a reminder to everyone when the nation moves further and further away from the shooting?
And he’s correct; those who vehemently oppose the views of Fox News and conservative radio hosts must also adhere to the president’s call for civility.
Maybe what we should all do is make “Remember Gabby and the Tucson 6″ buttons, T-shirts, and bumper stickers, as a way to stop someone in his tracks who chooses to get out of control.
As Mr. Obama would say, words, just words: 
Of course, when Rev. Wright calls you “my long term friend,” no wonder the rest of the world can sometimes seem so off-kilter:
Update: Via Instapundit, who dubs Martin’s latest outburst “Stalinesque Media Hate Speech,” Tom Blumer writes at Newsbusters, “Though tempting, it might not be a good idea to lobby CNN to suspend Martin again. I sort of like how he’s showing the world who he really is, and what his continued employment says about the network which employes him.”
More: Welcome readers clicking in from Instapundit, and the PJ Media homepage.
Having come off his initial Twitter suspension, the lesson Roland seems to have learned from this is to grab the Absolute Moral Authority card on a hot-button issue and play it for all it’s worth. He’s going to defy anyone at CNN to do anything with the Trayvon Martin case being the big media’s latest race-based kerfuffle.
Roland and Trayvon are the same race (Holy Cow, they even have the same last name!). That obviously gives the CNN commentator the right to say anything about anyone who dares question whether or not the network and others have gone a tad overboard on the coverage, at the expense of other issues that are more important nationally.
The potentially interesting part, though, is you know the White House is doing polling in Florida and elsewhere about this among Hispanic voters, since George Zimmerman did not turn out to be the Sunshine State’s equivalent to Bernie Goetz in terms of his heritage and demographic. If polling a few weeks down the line starts to show Hispanics becoming less sympathetic to the big media and the activists’ anger on this (i.e., if instead of the preferred black-vs.-white thing, it becomes a black-vs.-Hispanic battle), there’s a good chance this case will suddenly become far less important to the administration, and in turn, far less vital to the higher-ups who support Obama in the big media, even if someone like Roland Martin wants to keep fanning the flames. That’s when the hammer might come down from CNN, if ongoing outrageous outrage like Martin’s threatens to start costing Team Obama Hispanic votes in November.
I think CNN’s “new civility” went from Dr. Jeckle to Mr. Hyde.
Or is that “Mr. Heckle?”
The Communist News Network is a perrenial 3 to 1 dog against Fox
For this reason alone the bombastic diatribe continues in an effort to be noteworthy. Mr Tingle and the sideshow known as Mr Ed as responsible journalists; are you serious ?
Mr Ed the talking horse was more likeable, trustworthy and smarter than todays counterpart. The horse from the 60s talked out out of his mouth while the latter talks out his ass
My apologies to all those equine out there offended by the comparison…
May a horseshoe hit you where the good lord hit you CNN
To quote one of my favorite self-gurus, “This is the dawnin’ of the Age of Breitbartius, ¡Age-of-Breightbartius!, ¡¡Bright BAAAAAR Tee Yuss!!”
Happy days.
Just shows that CNN is really desperate for ratings and will even keep a jerk like Roland Martin on staff to do it. I’m waiting for CNN to start bringing out the trained seals that can juggle a ball on their nose just to entertain their few remaining viewers. Oh, wait, they have Roland Martin to do that. That’s what you get for treating your last remaining viewers like uninformed children. You get fewer viewers.
CNN international is unwatchable: it’s mostly unsightly femijournos blabbing on and on about human trafficking ad nauseam, there is very little news of any kind – something you only watch if you are in your hotel room and there is absolutely no other choice.
While I agree with your larger point, let me say that human trafficking is a major problem in several key States (NY, FL, TX and CA). There are about 20,000 people trafficked into the US in any given year and tens of thousands of our kids are victims of forced prostitution in major cities. To decry the liberals we don’t need to ignore topics such as human trafficking. And fortunately, Florida just passed major legislation that toughens the laws, increases penalties, allows for RICO seizure of assets used by traffickers and the like.
Civility? CNN is actively trying to provoke violence with their obvious manipulation of the Zimmerman tape to make it sound like he used a racist slur. I saw a clip where they made a big deal about going into their finest sound studio in television and having their guy distort the sound over and over and it still sounded like Zimmeman said “punks” to me. But not to CNN who played the word over and over in hopes repetition and their firm assertion they hear it would produce the slur in the audience.
I’ve seen many articles on Zimmerman giving background information about him. I’m still looking for a coherent article giving background information on Trayvon Martin. All I hear is “he was a good kid” etc. Maybe someone can provide some links that would settle the matter of whether he was in fact a good kid.
Given the fact that Trayvon Martin’s Twitter acct. has been deleted and most of the people eulogizing him seem to be gang-bangers, I think your question has been answered.
P.S. His Twitter acct. name was NO_LIMIT_NI**A
He dressed and acted like a gang-banger because he was one.
I have stopped watching CNN except for Sanjay Gupta’s medical program. The rest of the anchors have this annoying holier than thou attitude and on top of it they lie when they can’t report any news straight as it is without giving out their own agenda. It’s sad all their anchors from morning to evening suffer from this “libtard” disease!!
The only Roland Martin on TV that I will acknowledge shares tips on bass-fishing, and I don’t even fish for bass.
Perhaps Martin might have mentioned, regarding the Arizona shooting, the early association of Sara Palin to the murderer, mental telepathy of an astounding nature. The leftist desire to connect the opposition to murder speaks much about the level of derangement & barely controlled violent urges of their own.
Wasn’t there a CNN pig who was blaming conservatives for the recent shooting of the young man in Florida?
“Wasn’t there a CNN pig who was blaming conservatives for the recent shooting of the young man in Florida?”
Don’t forget the recent shootings in France! 3 French soldiers of North African heritage were shot in separate incidents, then 3 Jewish children and a Jewish adult were shot at a Jewish school. The French media spoke ominously of the killer being aligned with right-wing hate groups and neo-Nazis. But the killer turned out to be a Muslim fanatic with no connection to any right wing groups. I’d be curious to know if they ever apologized to the right-leaning groups after the nature of the killer was identified. Somehow, I doubt it….
That story sure died off fast. Hardly a word from the MSM since the perp has been ID’d as a for-real terrorist. And muslim to boot. Damned facts anyway!!!
“And we’d'a gotten away with it too if it wasn’t fer you meddlin’ KIDS!”
Always time for lessons from Scooby-Doo.
Some lefties, notably in Los Angeles, are trying to use the Limbaugh comments on Fluke to censor hateful speech in the media (talk radio, specifically). They should be careful what they wish for – so many of their darlings wouldn’t be able to live up to such standards.
I fear CNN and MSNBC will have to be reduced to an advertising base of hair straighteners, payday loan shops and bling products before the business side takes notice of the viewership slump.
Bozell: Hannity ‘Language of the Left’ Special MRCTVone Saturday, March 24, 2012
http://mrctv.org/videos/bozell-hannity-language-left-special
“Patty Hearst heard the burst”
At the risk of stating the obvious, “civility in speech” to the MSM = “politically correct speech”.
Is Soledad O’Brien one of those “white hispanics”?
Maybe a self hating “white hispanic”?
Liberal world: Cross-hairs = Bounty Bounty = Let’s Move On.
I’ve thought Martin should be fired from CNN for years. It’s not even a close call as to whether the guy’s a dyed-in-the-wool racist. The idea Roland Martin in any way actually likes white people is absurd.
White people idolized Michael Jordan, made him rich with merchandising, ads, etc.
Black people and the National Hockey League equals crickets chirping.
Black American’s accuse white folks of having some obsession with race but the shoe’s entirely on the other foot. That doesn’t stop Soledad (Racist Hunter) O’Brien from pretty much asking Martin if he will sell her more swampland. Martin represents the carny’s of the black liberal Left and O’Brien the chumps and marks of their white counterparts who are perceptually blind. That’s a friendly way of saying they’re naive idiots.
Obsession with race? The shoe is definitely on the on the other foot. Currently, we have Black Panthers openly calling for the pre-trial lynching of someone who they arrogantly, ignorantly believe defiled their Race. And noone bats an eye – to paraphrase from the very honorable Reverend Wright. The shoe is most definitely on the other foot. Meanwhile, the Evil Lincoln fans their flames.
I’m sure that during the Civil War people had the same senes of indecision when “brother fought brother”.
We must stick to what is right. That conviction is what determines what “brother” actually means.
(The Civil War WAS NOT about Abraham Lincoln.)
Conservatives stand for equality and equal opportunity. WE ARE THE NORTH.
“Fate is not without a sense of irony”. – Morpheus, The Matrix
This election day let’s hope that some metaphorical, and especially fuzzy bunnies knaw on the Democrats collective genitals, and smother them, figuratively, to death with their cuteness. How’s that?
No?
How about Magwais?