Soledad O’Brien’s Progressive Nostalgia and the Collapse of CNN
Biased? Moi? Soledad channels her inner Dan Rather:
“I don’t think I show bias in my TV show. I think I am aggressive with people about trying to find the facts behind what they say,” O’Brien told the Reporter’s Paul Bond. “Am I a liberal or conservative? I’m neither. Like most Americans, I find politics very frustrating. Like most Americans, I’d like to hear from politicians the facts. That is what drives me.”
At the American Interest Website, on Walter Russell Mead’s blog, John Ellis explores “The Collapse of CNN.” The quote above by Soledad O’Brien defines what happened perfectly.
The vast majority of Americans are self-aware enough to understand where they fit on the political spectrum, and seek out programming that reflects their worldview. The idea that a network anchorperson needs to be “neutral” in his or her politics more or less worked from the 1920s, when the first radio networks began, through the end of the 1970s. (Watch Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 film Network if you need a refresher on the television news industry at the peak of the Big Three’s information monopoly.) Broadcast bandwidth was scarce, building a national radio and then television network was expensive, and the Fairness Doctrine stifled competition anyhow, as Nick Gillespie and George Mason University’s Thomas Hazlett discussed in a recent video at Reason TV. It also more or less fit within the consensus of the New Deal that dominated America during the middle of the 20th century. Which is why Cronkite, Dan Rather, and other news industry figures who date from this period reflexively pretended not to know what their politics were when asked in interviews, until after they vacated their network anchor chairs and revealed themselves as — shocker! — flaming liberals.
But beginning in the 1980s, cable and satellite TV held out the promise of hundreds of TV channels, making the Fairness Doctrine seem like a dinosaur from the bobbysoxer era. (Even more so, once the rise of the World Wide Web essentially made bandwidth free.) In the 1990s, once first Rush Limbaugh and then Fox News and Drudge took off, the landscape of the media changed dramatically, finally returning to Americans choices of where to get their news and opinion, in a manner not seen since the days before the broadcast networks. Conservatives were thrilled; the left wanted — and finally got — outlets that matched their worldview as well. (There were loads of leftists in America prior to the rise of the Blogosphere and MSNBC who turned on the 6:30 evening news and thought that Peter, Dan, and Tom were waaaaay too conservative for their taste.)
Fox and MSNBC are open about their biases — if you’re on the right, you have a channel that matches your worldview. If you’re on the left, you have a channel that matches your worldview. Viewers at home on both sides of the aisle may grouse that their respective channels are too moderate. (I know plenty of conservative Fox viewers think that; I’m assuming there must be a certain number of leftists who would long to junk MSNBC for The Bill Ayers Network. And Al Gore’s Current TV is essentially trying to battle MSNBC from the left.)
It’s mostly an affectation, this claim of neutrality. If she believes it to be true, then she’s as stupid as most of us think she is. If not (more likely, I think), then she’s comfortable with the casual lying about identity that most of the media elite embraces. We wonder why there are so many incidents of plagiarism and quote manufacturing, so much shameful clinging to false narratives and media myths. It’s because journalism these days isn’t about truth, but posture. Journalists are expected to conform to a specific ideological perspective that they all share in private, but declare themselves to be something else in public.
It’s actually quite reminiscent of Taqiyya in Islam–journalists have dispensation from their colleagues to deny the true progressive faith in public, in order to protect their precious ratings and supposed influence. So they say they’re not liberals. The cost would be too high to admit it. Truth is, everyone already knows. Which is why CNN’s ratings are what they are. They might as well come out of the closet and just admit it.
If they were to actually admit it, then they would morph into MSNBC and their ratings would tank even lower.
None of the comments I have seen so far deals with the political sources of today’s “liberalism” that are still managed by Popular Front politics. We don’t need “balance” we need an accurate history of the cultural work of the Comintern and its effect upon the humanities curriculum and on contemporary coverage of the media. I tried to analyze the Popular Front and its awful legacy here: http://clarespark.com/2012/08/20/ernest-hemingway-carlos-baker-and-the-spanish-civil-war/.
As upfront as Hannity & O’Reilly are about their politics, they are far more fair to the opposition than people like O’Brien ever where.
I think that’s the secret of Fox’s success They do report news that will make Democrats look good or Republicans look bad. CNN will not report news that makes Republicans look good or Democrats look bad.
Fox was very tough on Dubya during Katrina (as they should have been).
Your whole post is a prime example of exactly how the media formulates and manipulates a person’s opinion. Critical thinking skills aren’t required once the ‘on’ button is pushed to the tv.
And that in a nutshell is exactly what is wrong with the media. They don’t seek to inform, they seek to manipulate which is immoral.
I wish someone would define the phrase “critical thinking skills” and give a few examples of their presence and absence. Since the phrase is overused by the education bureaucracy, whose members, on average, are the least academically talented of all the “professionals,” I’ve always assumed it meant “anything but facts and math.” It also seems to mean “indoctrination in the leftist canon.”
I’ll take a run at it for Laurel. Critical thinking skills should be taught and strengthened in k-12 schools. But they are not. Schools do not want a student to understand how to take the information that is offered and make a decision. Instead they are told what the answer is no matter what the information states. Students and then adults never learned how to put together the information to make a decision.
First, in the case of the LSM, they do not give the viewer/reader all the information; they only provide what information they deem to fit their ideology (i.e. the NYT and their former tag line “all the news that is fit to print.”)
Second, they give you their conclusion or opinion disguised as the result of their information, i.e. the shooter belonged to the TEA Party and therefore the TEA Party is violent.
Very true, and Fox less so than the others.
And what ideology is it that Bill O’Reilly claims?
I’m a social libertarian and fiscal conservative, and I want no part of O’Reilly’s support for gun control, his belief in global warming, and his calls to limit the earnings of MDs, among other non-rightist positions he has espoused.
Olbermann is a partisan progressive hack, but at least he is honest about being a partisan progressive hack. O’Reilly is a blustering populist in the worst sense of the term “populist”.
O’Reilly is an old school ethnic blue-collar big government democrat that was chased out of that party by the socialists in the late 70s – early 80s.
O’Reilly is a Nassau County Republican who shades his tone and comments to the ratings for all the topics he will present.
Outstanding!! He is more concerned with being invited to the next Manhattan social and interview than informing the public. Unfortunately we bought into him when he arrived on the scene because we were soo hungry for someone to even remotely tell our story.
He shows his disdain for conservatives everytime he has one on and his bias toward leftism when he has one of them on–Mark lamont Hill.
He is the bloviator he so much despises. Recall he is a harvard grad.
O’Reilly is about as close to what I would define as a “centrist” in this country – someone who holds some very leftist views and someone who holds some very conservative views, and as a result really fits in with neither side and winds up somewhere in the middle.
“Why, I’m a conservative, Mary,” as Ted Baxter would say.
O’Reilly is a not-so-deep-thinking fellow who generally takes the conservative side. Whether that’s because he has sincere inclinations to it or that it’s because he knows where his bread is buttered, I can’t say.
O’Reilly is an ass who targets an audience of righteously indignant sheep.
I get your point but frankly it would be nice if there was a network, say CNN, that actually did try to find a balance. MSNBC was actually close back when O’Brien was on. At least it wasn’t the left wing crazy place it’s become. I don’t enjoy MSNBC or FOX News programs at all. Believe it or not, some people would like to see news that isn’t by a crazy eyed nut or one that “agrees with me”. How can news agree with me?
Anyway, it’s really a shame that CNN has lost its way so badly. There really is an audience that would like to find a more balanced news source.
It seems from your comment, BEB, that no network is up to your expectations, whatever they might be. Why should they try when failure can be the only result?
Har, har, har.
You mean a balance that suits /you/.
CNN was much better when controlled by maverick Southern Ted Turner. Headquarted outside of the New York/Washington axis, they sometimes presented an outsider perspective. Furthermore Crossfire gave Conservatives a forum. Lou Dobbs Moneyline wasnt Leftwing. Capital Gang had quality conservative pundits, Novak and Buchanan with Center non-obnoxious Lefty’s Shields and Hunt.
They tanked when the Corporate New York/Washington axis took over Time-Warner, lost all independence of thought and decision making. Cut their worldwide on the ground staff. And became just another Me Too Leftist Establishment shill.
I just noticed that MSNBC is doing well, where they were ratings losers back when Keith Olbermann was running Primetime.
Not to mention her pitiful appearance on Jeopardy, when she demonstrated that she really doesn’t know much about the world around her.
Soledad O’Brien is also hampered by the fact that, even by the etiolated standards of news anchors, she’s a cretin. If she’s safe and comfortable in her little niche, with pliant supporters tossing her softball questions she’s barely able to keep her head above water, but as soon as she gets someone who is both intellectually nimble and not of her camp, she’s sunk. Witness John Sununu blitzing her recently. The only counter is her infuriating little trick of realising she’s making an ass of herself and simply halting that line of attack.
“O’Brien has been on the air for over 20 years now…”
The most damaging thing a critic of O’Brien can do is cite her age. Frankly, her views have hardened along with her face. Those “cute” little expressions she became famous for now resemble angry sneers.
She’s like those “bitter, middle-aged women who don’t like children” often mentioned in articles on the collapse of American education.
Anger and bitterness manifest on someone’s features, just like smoking and drinking. People who enjoy their lives age well and their features can become even more pleasant. Soledad O’Brien, even when she was a kid, always struck me as angry and unpleasant.
Solenoid is hardly more than a defective car part and she does need to wear that bumper sticker on her forehead all the time just so no one forgets who she really is.Sununu really tagged her good.She didn’t seem quite ready for anyone who would actually talk back to her. Typical of hardcore liberals who lead such sheltered beltway/nyc lives they don’t know what the rest of the country is all about.
“Her inner Dan Rather.” LOL
Spineless Soledad!!
Who is Soledad O’Brien? Not many people know and fewer care.
The vast majority of Americans are self-aware enough to understand where they fit on the political spectrum, and seek out programming that reflects their worldview.
That I think is simply not the case.
A fair chunk of even Rush and Hannity listeners are rabid leftists, and what’s more get priority when they call in. Similarly conservatives watch some of the MSM because they are there, if no other reason. Fox has always been third-rate as a news source whatever their putative positioning, which apparently has been shifting left by management edict from the very top – though it was never very right in the first place, and their sense of balance is to include some inaccurate leftwingnut stuff along with at least covering some conservative points eschewed by the MSM.
Charlie Rose on the CBS Morning show is I think doing the best job on the air today, he has long been a classic journalist, letting guests of any persuasion have as much rope as they like, and not challenging them head to head, which is correct because no reporter *is* the story and has no standing to lecture any guest for any reason. Confront with facts (and old video) sure, but even that is, y’know, harder than it looks to do in a responsible and neutral manner.
charlie rose is an out and out idiot, always, whether he’s slanting or spinning, or not.
Rose is a lot less sharp than ten years ago, before a couple of heart operations, but he’s still an excellent journalist in the old style. You lead the subject where he wants to go, you take all the bait they offer, because that’s your job. And that’s what I strongly prefer to watch.
If you think otherwise, it’s probably because you’re a modern kind of guy and probably think Tim Russert or Bob Schieffer or Soledad O’Brien are models to follow.
– weather next year.
Bill O is a self- important blowhard and not a Conservative. Have you tried to read any of his books? I don’t read children’s fiction. If Bill cannot write on an adult level, what does that say about his intelligence? Or perhaps it reflects his view of the intellect of his audience.
I’m done with Fox News. They have sold out almost completely. Must be the influence of all that Saudi money.
Same here. Bill O only looks out for himself so he can promote his next book on ABC, NBC, CBS, etc.. The only true conservative on Fox News is Sean Hannity, and he is somewhat of a phony at times. Whereas, the entire lineup of MSNBC, and the better part of CNN are progressive leftist. They are all headquartered in the limo liberal capital of the world, and anything varying from the liberal message is in danger of scrutiny. They basically ran Glenn Beck, and his family out of town, but what else would you expect from the place consistently voted rudest city in the country.
I agree also that Fox News has changed most recently, and I am no longer a loyal viewer. A network that has Jesse Jackson’s daughter and girlfriend as contributors is hard to take seriously any longer as something counter to the other media.
Oreilley is a statist and populist. Hannity, for all the wrapping himself and his TV and radio shows in the US flag, actually comes off as just right of center, more like a conservative democrat. Hannity just doesn’t seem like much of a pundit.
But I gotta say I’m crazy about Cavuto. Smart, funny, and tough as nails, then a genuine conservative to
boot.
Show us your voting record.
According to John Ellis, CNN International is still hugely successful. I’ve spent many years living and working outside of the US and have seen a great deal of CNN International. It is almost as snottily anti-American as BBC Worldwide and is as leftist. I think as CNN saw its fortunes waning in the US, they tried to bring that ‘successful model’ back to the States. We’re seeing the results.
Yep, and I am a real liberal and believe in carter/obamaeconomics, hate the 2nd amendment and believe speech is not free…just a FYI
How anyone can believe that crap after years of experience is beyond me. And you get no kudos for being a dumbass either.
“”Am I a liberal or conservative? I’m neither.”"
That’s because you’re a socialist, hon.
Oh I don’t doubt for a second that she thinks she is totally neutral and objective.
THAT’s the problem.
The brainwashing of the media is as complete as it can possibly be.
The sliver of people who hold views that are not lockstep with marxism is the same sliver of people who will be writing resistance novels from the gulag; that sliver can never be coopted under any circumstance. The other 97% or so…Soledad clones, one and all.
Soledad and her ilk are bubble people. They live in left-wing bubbles – all their friends are left-wing, all their co-workers are left-wing, and they rarely don the gown, mask & gloves that allows them to step outside into the real world where their food is grown, their clothes & shoes are made, and where the bricks that surround them in Manhattan are made. If they did, they would get a glimpse of hard-working Americans who don’t like the socialist, wealth-distributionist, ‘you-didn’t-build-that’ policies of the left. And when you confront them with real facts that don’t fit into their bubble, as Sununu did, they implode.
Women live in a world than men plowed, planted, harvested, processed then delivered to the supermarkets they shop in. In a world that men engineered, designed, manufactured, distributed all the manufactured items she uses, roads she drives on, houses she lives in.
Like most liberal ditzes (male and female) Soledad has zero idea about all this. Never thinks about this. She thinks she sprung to life sui generis and is fit to bloviate to us mere mortals. Obama is the male version. I can tell he never changed the oil on a car nor did 99% of his Harvard appointees. Though perhaps some of the gay female ones did.
Written in the vein of Victor Davis Hansen
More like Fred Reed:
http://www.fredoneverything.net/MoreWhiteMales.shtml
Although it is not really a news show per se, C-SPAN’s “Book Notes” was an excellent example of a fair program. The host of that show kept his opinions to himself and tried to ask intelligent questions of the kind most people would want answers to. Most other networks are asking gotcha questions so of course people aren’t going to be honest or even come on at all.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
You don’t get behind the camera in the new America without following the government media party line. They will use every effort to destroy you as we see with Rush and Savage.
Murdoch and his Fox network have recently learned this and made their course correction.
“Am I a liberal or conservative? I’m neither. ”
Asking a question and not wanting to listen to an answer is too liberal for words.
just checked out the wiki bio on sob
if one labors under the tenets of liberalism one can see the reasons for her confusion
a few things– her name is: María de la Soledad Teresa O’Brien
her father is an australian of irish descent
her mother – afro-cuban
all the kids went to harvard
instead of fully embracing her diverse ancestry, because of her liberal indoctrination, she is essentially at war with herself in her head as each “victim group” demon perches itself a top her shoulder whispering nasty things about the other groups – poor girl
It is obvious Soledad O is a Marxist…By definition, that makes her the ultimate racist of racists.
aren’t many of these liberals commentators people that tell us that they didn’t know a person that voted for Reagan or for Nixon????
And their bubble is so isolated as to be verging on incompetence, if it were in any other field.
Ask this clever_in_her_own_mind buffoon who she is voting for. She voted for Obama 2008 and will vote for Obama 2012. So she is a liberal in addition to being full of horse pucky
Yea, C-SPAN and Brian Lamb are as close to neutral as you’re going to get in the media. I’d like to see Lamb moderate a debate.
Does anyone else remember her coverage of Jeremiah Wright’s address to the NAACP in 2008? This was after tapes of his sermons came out with him spewing forth all his radical hatred for the US, white people, etc. He barely cloaked this same sentiment in that speech and Soledad O’Brien gave commentary afterwards saying that “he really hit it out of the park” or some such thing. Consider this a litmus for her political leanings.
I recollect her when she worked at one of the news outlets here in Boston.
To paraphrase Reagan, “…so far to the Left, she’s practically leaving the country.”
I’m talking about right after the speech, not the day after (see video above).
Soledad is not very bright and is an affirmative action product and a beneficiary of the craze for diversity, like BHO: she would not receive any attention if she had a name like Sally.
Soledad. Soledad. Soledad. Where does the name come from? What was its genesis? Is she named for the Soledad Brothers? Because she likes to be alone? Or because no one watches her show?
“Am I a liberal or conservative? I’m neither.”
Actually, the description that comes to my mind when I think of Soledad (which I seldon do) is “dimwitted hack.”
Rose and PBS Newshour. Id forgotten abt mcneill lehrer news hour as well. Excellent public service. Public but not provided by the state.
CNN lost its mojo during the OJ Simpson trial. It was a serious source for news before that. During that trial, it drank the sensationalism cool aid and started its tortuous descent. Now I can’t watch it for more than 30 seconds before wanting to puke.
Am I retarded or sub-retaded? I’m neither? I’m a Mongoloid!
Long time back she was not like her present incarnation. After her initial stint as anchor in the morning, it seems, she was sent for training and she morphed into what she is now – a very annoying, snorky, snotty liberal dolt. One cannot watch her and wonder what is her qualification to be a TV newsmen(newsomen)- very little is needed to be on TV. Sad thing is how these media people lie with a straight face and perhaps don’t even know they are lying.
How can we stop the debates with moderators like soledad? Oh, I know shes’ not one, but the otheers are just like her.
Message for Soledad:
If everyone you agree with is liberal, you might be a liberal. If all your friends are liberal, you might be a liberal.
You never asked a one term Senator from Chicago a question a 5 min old baby couldn’t have answered. You never grilled him on his communist viewpoints, because you like communist viewpoints. You never questioned his life story because to you, being given the most powerful position in the world is simply owed to a liberal/communist/socialist.
On the other hand, you can’t bear the thought of an America that doesn’t take from the wealthy (other than you and your friends) and give to you and your poor friends. So conservatives will be asked the most innane questions again and again until flyover country is ready to storm you bastions with our pitchforks and shovels. You will also be denigrated without question.
Maybe you should ask yourself some hard questions.
Edited paragraph:
On the other hand, you can’t bear the thought of an America that doesn’t take from the wealthy (other than you and your friends) and give to you and your friends. So conservatives will be asked the most innane questions again and again until flyover country is ready to storm your bastions with our pitchforks and shovels. You will denigrate any conservative without question. Because in your heart you believe conservatives are evil and stupid, without question.
Sorry for not catching the grammatical errors the first time.
“I don’t think I show bias in my TV show.”–Soledad “Obama’s Mouthpiece” O’Brien
LOL!!!
That’s the kind of humor I enjoy. When folks say things that are completely absurd, and say it with a totally straight face.
Sure, Soledad O’Brien is not biased. And I’m George Washington. Want to buy a bridge? Give me a break. She’ll be crying into her margarita on election night when Obama loses.
See Bernie Goldberg’s position on liberal bias to better understand old media types and what seems to be stunning dishonesty on their part when they claim to be neutral on the air.
Simply put, when progressives like Soledad O’Brien say they are non-partisan and seek only the “facts”, they mean it, and are not lying. Raised and working in the oft-cited liberal “bubble”, they honestly believe progressive shibboleths are objective truth, and cannot comprehend that anyone might disagree with those progressive “facts” they accept as gospel.
Watching most of what passes for news and opinion on TV these days leaves me with the same feeling I get when being barked at by a Chihuahua.
Soledad O’Brien. you are not only biased, you are ill-informed, uneducated in the sciences and economics, rude, and illogical. You also show remarkable egocentricity in spite of these deep shortcomings.I hope this helps you understand yourself.
“Am I a liberal or conservative? I’m neither.”
Hah!
What she should have said is “Am I a journalist or a reporter? I’m neither.”
Soledad O’Brien is not a biased and dimwitted hack. And neither, by golly, is Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, Nancy Pelosi, or Barbara Boxer!! So there.
That’s why she high-fives racist Roland Martin on air; the guy who said racism is in the DNA of America. O’Brien has a Bar-O brand on her hind end.
SOLEDAD O’BRIEN , YOU ARE A PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL AND YOU DIG REV WRIGHT WHO IS A RACIST AND ANTISEMITE !! WHO ARE YOU ? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE ?
Either she beleives what she says and is therefore too stupid to pay any attention to;
or
She is flat out lying to herself and therefore should not be paid attention to.
Watching Ms. O’Brien do interviews produces an irresistible urge to challenge her to a game of poker.
#46, 47: Outstanding sense of humor displayed by both of you. I am: Laughing my a$$ off.
Why do these 1/32 black women hate their white parent?
Soledad O’Brien hasn’t a clue about “most people.”
When SO’B claims that she is “neither liberal nor conservative”, she really believes this. She & her comrades in the Leftist Bubble believe they are the moral and political norm and do not regard themselves as “ideological.”
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there ARE other views.”—William F. Buckley, Jr. (1925-2008)
O’brien is not biased….she’s just an educated moron.
When I first encountered Soledad on the Tube, she was shouting in the most stentorian tones she could produce. Now, she talks and wiggles her shoulders in her best portrayal of a sweet pussycat.
She is totally artificial.
“expat” seems to think that denial without explanation actually carries weight in a serious discussion? One can deny for ones own self, but it is presumption to step in and deny for anyone else. For the record, both Washerhair Schmutz and Pelosi are dimwits and they have no awareness of audience or empathy for one. Boxer is a shrew (don’t dare call me “madam”) and has little integrity but is smart enough to know herself. O’brien is simply out of her depth but lucky she is working for an uncritical boss. Those are indelible impressions that their actions have demonstrated, and cannot be walked back with your breezy denial. Now, what substantive rebuttal has Expat for for this, with examples?
Soledad Obrien, who was named after a prison in California, is a typical modern liberal trying to head-fake us to hide her true stripes. Unfortunately, her veil slips on a daily basis so we can all see her stripes – as we also can with CNN.