“CNN Leaves it There” is Now Officially a Problem at CNN
July 3rd, 2011 by Jay Rosen
from PressThink
You can’t have a “he said, she said” brand and yet stand out as the only real news network. There are signs that the new boss at CNN understands this.
The problem is this: CNN thinks of itself as the “straight down the middle” network, the non-partisan alternative, the one that isn’t Left and isn’t Right. But defining itself as “not MSNBC” and “not Fox” begs the question of what CNN actually is. To the people who run it, the answer is obvious: real journalism! That’s what CNN is. Or as they used to say, “the news is the star.”
Right. But too often, on-air hosts for the network will let someone from one side of a dispute describe the world their way, then let the other side describe the world their way, and when the two worlds, so described, turn out to be incommensurate or even polar opposites, what happens?… CNN leaves it there. Viewers are left stranded and helpless. The network appears to inform them that there is no truth, only partisan bull. Is that real journalism? No. But it is tantalizingly close to the opposite of real journalism. Repeat it enough, and this pattern threatens to become the network’s brand, which is exactly what Stewart was pointing out.
That’s bad, but there’s more. CNN loses in the prime-time ratings race to Fox, the big winner, and MSNBC, which is a distant second. Ratings mean numbers and numbers are easy to understand, plus they fluctuate a lot, which means that media beat reporters focus frequent attention on CNN’s troubles in prime time. Asked to comment for these stories, CNN’s leadership can continue to drone on about their commitment to “straight news” and “quality journalism” without ever facing the fact that a real commitment to serious journalism would require a confrontation with its own laziness and political timidity.
(More here.)
from PressThink
You can’t have a “he said, she said” brand and yet stand out as the only real news network. There are signs that the new boss at CNN understands this.
The problem is this: CNN thinks of itself as the “straight down the middle” network, the non-partisan alternative, the one that isn’t Left and isn’t Right. But defining itself as “not MSNBC” and “not Fox” begs the question of what CNN actually is. To the people who run it, the answer is obvious: real journalism! That’s what CNN is. Or as they used to say, “the news is the star.”
Right. But too often, on-air hosts for the network will let someone from one side of a dispute describe the world their way, then let the other side describe the world their way, and when the two worlds, so described, turn out to be incommensurate or even polar opposites, what happens?… CNN leaves it there. Viewers are left stranded and helpless. The network appears to inform them that there is no truth, only partisan bull. Is that real journalism? No. But it is tantalizingly close to the opposite of real journalism. Repeat it enough, and this pattern threatens to become the network’s brand, which is exactly what Stewart was pointing out.
That’s bad, but there’s more. CNN loses in the prime-time ratings race to Fox, the big winner, and MSNBC, which is a distant second. Ratings mean numbers and numbers are easy to understand, plus they fluctuate a lot, which means that media beat reporters focus frequent attention on CNN’s troubles in prime time. Asked to comment for these stories, CNN’s leadership can continue to drone on about their commitment to “straight news” and “quality journalism” without ever facing the fact that a real commitment to serious journalism would require a confrontation with its own laziness and political timidity.
(More here.)
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