‘In Crisis, CNN Aims to Rethink the Brand’
There’s no doubt that CNN is in deep trouble, but see if you can spot the ideologically-driven faulty assumption as to why in this Politico report on CNN’s ratings woes:
From my report tonight on the state and fate of CNN:
…. While CNN struggles to make 24-hour news compelling, its competitors at Fox News and MSNBC have redefined the industry. They have eschewed traditional, straight-forward newsgathering in favor of partisan, personality driven analysis — a model that is increasingly successful in an era of hyper-partisan politics, but one that CNN has resisted even as its ratings continue their slow and steady decline.
There is now, according to industry experts, a very real possibility that without a coherent strategy, the only nonpartisan network left on cable could become largely irrelevant to the national conversation. [...]
(Also on POLITICO: What’s wrong at CNN)
In interviews with POLITICO, several staffers throughout the organization described CNN as a troubled network suffering from an absence of editorial leadership. “There is no editorial guidance, no editorial culture,” said one staffer, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. “We’re always chasing the story. How often do you see something that’s fresh and distinctive?” [...]
Feist and other network spokespeople dismiss the ratings comparison, arguing that CNN is not in the same category as MSNBC and Fox News. Where those two offer ideologically driven, partisan analysis, CNN is the only U.S. cable news organization committed to nonpartisan news-gathering, they say.
And if you believe that CNN really is “committed to nonpartisan news-gathering” free of partisanship (cough — shilling for Saddam, getting cozy with Kim Jong Il — cough — Wright-Free Zone — cough — Anderson Cooper’s painful “teabagging” references, baking cakes for Obama and on and on and on) then you might be working for a “news” organization that is also a partisan shop pretending to be objective, and wondering why it’s losing audience as well.
Whatever Fox and MSNBC’s other issues, at least consumers know what sort of product they’re getting when tune into those networks. Trying to pretend to be objective is a long-outdated model that’s reached the end of the production line.
Yes. It’s often hard to close a sale when you don’t know what it is you’re selling.
Ah, you left out the best and most recent piece from cnn.com:
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-06-26/opinion/opinion_granderson-fast-furious_1_fast-and-furious-iran-contra-scandal-pakistani-government?_s=PM:OPINION
“Hey, maybe they messed up, but let’s not be nosy! Sometimes the public just doesn’t need to know.”
This was printed by a _news_ organization.
Wow! That was an unbelievable op-ed. It sounds as lame as Pravda shilling for the KGB. “Bad bad American people! Dear Leader is doing all he can for the good of the country and you dare ask questions?! You nosy ungrateful brats! What Dear Leader is or isn’t doing is really none of your business. And if it sounds rude to you it’s because you’ve been pampered for too long, poking your big dirty busy nose into matters that shouldn’t concern you.”
That’s a great link, thanks.
Yeah, we shoud be happy when the Obama Admin spills everything about matters that really should be secret (Stuxnet), and not care about it stonewalling things that should be public.
Makes a lot of sense to me.
I don’t think we can blame Politico. If Politico stops pretending that CNN is non-partisan, then CNN will stop pretending that Politico is non-partisan.
So, CNN is only infested w/ moonbats, as opposed to barking moonbats like MSNBC. CNN non-partisan? Compared to Fox? That’s a howler. What was the last, believable, acaademic study on neutrality in news reporting? Wasn’t it UCLA? And didn’t Fox kick CNN’s butt? The other networks? Fugidaboutit!
The story on CNN website about Fast & Furious that is full of outright falsehoods about the F&F story, to defend the ATF, is a great example of partisanship pretending to be objective … and failing utterly.
CNN is, unfortunately (?) suffering from the worst of both worlds, they necessarily chase headline news stories 24/7, and then beat their audience over the head with merciless partisanship. Apparently, the only people still watching are those trapped in airports where the flat screen monitors make it impossible to change the channel.
Driscoll you’re a right guy who does good work. Moreover, I suspect (as you might) that you’re under appreciated.
Keep doing what you do.
But that’s just it — I’m happy to admit that I’m a “right guy.” In today’s news environment, those who admits their biases are far more trusted by their readers/viewers than those who try to hide behind the shield of being “objective.”
I had to chuckle when I saw this piece, because I NEVER watch television news, but because today my internet service was out for a few hours, I turned it on and surfed some channels. On MSNBC, Toure was suggesting that Pat Tillman was perhaps murdered by the U.S. military for fear that he might publicly oppose the war, and so I went to CNN, where I was assured that if Obamacare was overturned by the courts, it would really be a defeat for . . . Mitt Romney! Because you see, Romneycare is the “inspiration” of Obamacare. Not that CNN would use the word Obamacare. They didn’t even suggest it might be a defeat for Obama. So yeah, CNN as the neutral and objective channel? Total horsepoop.
What bothers me about CNN at least as much as their pretending to be unbiased when they aren’t, is their coverage of non-news. I don’t watch TV but I do visit their website from time to time, and usually front and center is some politically correct feature story. The news, meantime, is listed in tiny type down the left-hand side. They are so busy pushing their idealized social agenda and making non-news into news that I just don’t go there anymore.
Actually, if I want just straight up reporting, I go to the BBC. They cover America far more objectively than CNN, which is a pretty sad commentary on the state of general news outlets, considering the Beeb is not exactly centrist.
^this.
This morning, I checked Drudge, abc, NBC, CBS, and CNN. The main stories, accompanying their largest graphic were news, news, news, news, and a pro-Obamacare opinion piece.
The other faulty assumption would be that MSNBC, the supposed flip side of FNC, is doing all that well. It isn’t. But pointing that out would make suspect the storyline that it’s all about supplying partisan news.
Aren’t TV executives supposed to be about increasing shareholder value? So why are the non-FNC choices limited to left and far-left?
For years it’s occured to me that there might be a place on cable for a truly non-partisan news/opinion channel. Sort of a televised version of Real Clear Politics, where you’re equally likely to hear opinions from the Weekly Standard as from Mother Jones.
National Review vs. The Nation. City Journal vs. The New Republic. Wall Street Journal vs. The New York Times, etc.
A cable channel genuinely produced in that spirit might win some viewers.
What’s tragicomic is that, apparently, CNN thinks that’s what they currently are.
And committing to inaccuracy by spreading the Big Lie on Fast and Furious, repeating the ginned-up Fortune article as “Truth.” Somebody paid a fortune, but it fails in every respect, they should ask for their money back.
A news network that made a real and sustained effort to be objective might be successful. Who knows? It hasn’t been tried for years.
CNN is not an American news network and has not been for 20 years. It is a Euro-Arab network, competing in international hotel rooms with the BBC and Al-Jizz. So they have to compete to see who can be the most anti-Israel/anti-Semitic, and pro-terrorist.
CNN does not care if they are watching in Alexandria, Louisiana, so long as they are watching in Alexandria, Egypt.
Soledad O’Brien may be the most left-wing, reprehensible, partisan hack on TV. I know she’s got “stiff” competition from Rachel Maddow and the rest of the MSNBC shills, but I would say O’Brien is kind of the Bill Maher of network news: vile, crass, completely unlikable and unedifying, not terribly bright, and yet still way too full of themselves.
However, I’m glad CNN sees themselves as nonpartisan. They’ll go out of existence even faster.
Might this be it?
“…… They have eschewed traditional, straight-forward newsgathering in favor of partisan, personality driven analysis — a model that is increasingly successful in an era of hyper-partisan politics, but one that CNN has resisted….”
I laughed out loud when I saw that one.
Remember headline news when you could cut on the tube and get the highlights of the newsday in five minutes? must have been profitable…they kept it on for years before they went to crap like joy behard…and now we have four hours of the deadliest, dullest guy in tv, blitzer, and we have an arrogant, completely out of touch furriner in morgan, and po’ old cooper, with his toe in the closet door and no respect from anybody…if i had thirty minutes i could fix the whole network, but i am too busy with impeachment plans today…
Trying to pretend to be objective is a long-outdated model that’s reached the end of the production line.
Well, it probably works pretty well when you really do try to be as objective as you can, like SongDog said.
Problem is, CNN doesn’t – quite possibly because nobody there really realizes that they themselves aren’t Objective And Impartial.
What would a “non-partisan” news network look like? I think the problem starts with the fact that the political “center of gravity” for the profession as a whole is left of center, not the center itself. Thus, to them the center looks like the “moderate” right and the right itself looks extreme. The culture where the people who runs things all live (NY and LA) and maybe if we had a news network headquartered in Des Moines or Oklahoma City, we would get a different perspective.
This is not a new viewpoint, it has been expressed many times before. But nobody in the business seems to “get” it.
Fish don’t know he’s all wet.
Why not label the media Democrats?
Everyone knows the media are overwhelmingly liberal and Democrat. Call them them the Democratic Media Machine (DMM), New York Times Democrat (NYTD)! Associated Press Democrat (APD)! CBSD! ABCD! 60 Democratic Minutes! ….
It’s important that readers and viewer know thier information is coming not from an impartial observer but from the point of view of the Democratic Party. The issue is not thier bias but the pretense that they are objective.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/05/truth_in_labeling_why_not_just_call_the_media_democrats.html
Some guy from Politico may think that CNN is a neutral news gathering network, but really, I don’t think anyone from CNN is that stupid.
“Some guy from Politico may think that CNN is a neutral news gathering network, but really, I don’t think anyone from CNN is that stupid.”
Two words: Piers Morgan.
CNN is a dying brand. Not only do they skew the news; it’s obvious; they are boring in their pandering to all things Obama and Democrat. They might as well call themselves PCNN, the Progressive Communist News Network.
A perfect example of CNN’s liberal bias was on display tonight on the John King Show. John King’s segment on Fast and Furious/Holder contempt vote contained a clip of Boehner supporting Bush’s claim of Executive Priviledge to highlight how this vote might be politically motivated. If John King/CNN were unbiased, he would have played the clip of Sen. Obama calling out the use of Executive Priviledge by Bush also. He chose to only call out the Republicans.
Actually I think FoxNews could use some competition. But instead CNN has turned John King into an Obamabot because MSNBC is doing better than they are. Wake up, idiots, MSNBC is doing better than you are but FoxNews is doing far better than MSNBC. If you believe you’re neutral and think you must go Left to get better ratings why not go Right instead?
So a highly principled and noble CNN has been falling and failing spectacularly for almost 15 years because it’s too committed to principled, unbiased news-gathering? Do I have that right? And it’s not because of years of CNN’s blatant shilling for the Democrat Party that viewers abandoned CNN in droves, and went to FOX and where they found the coverage and reporting far less biased?
And this was written, presumably, with a straight face? Okay, this just can’t be. This has got to be a joke. No one can mean this to be taken seriously. It’s a James Lileks piece, right? No? NO?!?! This is a SERIOUS ARTICLE?!?
Right. Yeah. Come on, admit this is a parody. C’mon. Seriously, it’s for REAL? Heh. Heheheh. Hahahaha! Hahahaaaaaaa!! mmmwwAAAAAAHAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAAA!!!! Please, stop! No, don’t! No more! I can’t take it! And they expect people to BELIEVE this self-righteous sanctimonious bushwa?!? BAAAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAAAA!!!! Too good!!!! Oh, I can’t get my breath! HAAAAAHAAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAHAAAAAAAAAA!!!!