Six years later, CNN is still the network Americans turn to when an earthquake strikes Haiti or a crucial health care vote takes place. But most days are slow news days, opinionated journalism is more interesting than the elusive quest for perfect objectivity and CNN is getting absolutely murdered in the ratings.
It was bad before this year; now it’s terrible. CNN’s prime-time hosts have lost almost half their viewers in the last 12 months. In February, the once-proud network slipped behind not only Fox News and MSNBC, but HLN (its sister network) and CNBC as well. Anderson Cooper sometimes gets beaten by re-runs of Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown….”
What might work, instead, is a cable news network devoted to actual debate….
I’ve never found CNN to be especially objective. They may try to be objective, but their liberal bias comes through, perhaps without intent.
Their real problem may be a backlash against the mainstream liberal media which went unchallenged for so many decades that they thought everyone was buying their views. If you’re not on the right, you’re assumed to be on the left.
Fox claims to be fair and balanced. They may be fair, but they are not balanced. Face it, “in your face” is the formula that works for TV. Everything is a competition where lack of manners and honor are celebrated. We get and deserve what we tune in to.
CNN has its problems. But they are the best of the big 3 news networks. MSNBC is a liberal parrot with Kieth Olbermann’s hysterical “special comments” now rather dull and boring. And Fox News has reduced itself to being the propaganda arm of the GOP, when it is not trying to be the television version of a supermarket tabloid with its ceaseless train of salacious stories about the latest missing co-ed (invariably some blond bombshell).
CNN is frankly a bit boring. And yes they too sometimes let their prejudices slip through. But unlike the other two networks they at least make an attempt at journalistic impartiality. And let’s be honest. Anytime someone reports a story that does not make your side of a debate look good people are going to line up and scream bias.
As a follow up to my previous I would note that CNN’s low ratings is a bit of a recommendation in my book. People naturally tend to gravitate towards news sources that will tell them what they want to hear. The fact that people on both the left and right dislike CNN is evidence to me that they are doing something right.
I’m sorry, Ad Orientem, but when Anderson Cooper used a deregatory sexual term to refer to those protesting against big government (a term I admit I had never heard of until then), CNN lost all credibility in my eyes. How juvenile and vulgar, and how biased and anti-objective journalism.
Branford,
Your joking right? I am not going to defend Cooper or anyone else who makes inappropriate comments on TV. (For the record Jack Cafferty has made some pretty salty references to Obama and big government liberals.) But I stand by my statement. CNN is the best of the big three. FOX and MSNBC are a joke. And when it comes to vulgar all I can say is that some of FOX’s news reporting could pass for soft porn.
As I said before. People tend to gravitate to those who share their views and will tell them what they want to hear. And if your politics are way to the right FOX News will happily confirm that Obama is indeed a socialist-communist out to destroy the United States.
Christ is risen!
John
It seems as though we Fox watchers must be the ill-bred knuckle-draggers who just don’t get a good thing like CNN or MSNBC.
I think that people are not quite so pidgeon-holed. I, for one, prefer Fox, but I have sense enough to look for information from various sources. It so happens that CNN and its liberal mindset get my attention briefly on the expedition to find information. They are quite disappointing because they are so predictable; kinda like NPR.
BTW: EVERYBODY wants to hear what they want. But, let’s be honest enough to believe that most people just aren’t easily duped by people who purport themselves to be as clever as they think that they are. That’s why CNN, the NYT, etc. are tanking. They believe themselves to be more clever than I am. Like a road-sign I’ll pay attention to them….briefly.
I think the market in this country is ripe for a 24-hour news service that actually reports in depth news like BBC World or something, and not the talking head or drivel stuff that permeates the current big news networks.
I like Headline News when they don’t have ‘special programs’, but just stick to straight news.
The commentary programs (from Cooper to Olbermann to Beck) leave me cold and I don’t watch any of them.
Archer_of_the_Forest, I long for a station like that. Sign me up.
I’ll offer a plug for one of my favorite, in-depth news programs, the John Batchelor Show. It’s only on radio, but you can stream it live from 9 pm to midnight EDT every night from http://www.wabcradio.com and download the podcasts from http://www.wabcradio.com and http://www.johnbatchelorshow.com. Batchelor is moderate on social policy, fiscally conservative, with strong national defense tendencies, and is a staunch supporter of Israel. I find reporting on this show that I do not hear anywhere else.
People still watch news on T.V.?
Unfortunately for CNN, this is too little objectivity, too late. I have watched news this last year with an eye toward who is being the most objective (and I admit that I am pretty conservative) and I have discovered that, indeed, CNN seems to be the most objective. But … and it’s a big but to me … CNN for years was not only liberal, but made up news stories (like Tailhood scandal, putting ignition rockets on their car crash experiments) when it suited their liberal politcial purposes. And reporters like Christiane Amanpour screamed their liberal biases at us from their emotional viewings and reportings of horrible human crises around the world, as they still do on occasion. So I have a tough time trusting CNN now. In addition, I think until FOX News came along (and I agree that it is biased toward conservatism – but not quite as over-the-top as MSNBC is biased on the liberal side), none of us really knew how badly duped on the liberal political side we were from the mainstream media and TV networks, though we were beginning to notice the unbelievable bias of the NYTimes.
Now, I think most people don’t trust any news organization to properly investigate our governmnet – the 4th Estate has severely let us down. But in a very real sense, our press in all forms is just another reflection of our society – the “me first” culture. Now our press is only interested, it seems, in winning prizes and setting themselves up for book writings and tours and to make money for themselves. Similarly, our politicians are only interested in power and money.
Our culture has forgotten to think outside ourselves. Could this memory loss have anything to do with the pushing down and attempted stamping out of the Christian heritage of our country from our everyday life over the last 35 years? As a corollary, is there another religion in the world that has the 2 Great Commandments and the 3d Commandment to love each other as He has loved us, as it basis, from which our society generally drew its moral building blocks and social guidelines prior to the 1970s? (And, no, we didn’t always follow those guidelines or building blocks, but we knew what they were, that they were right, and we didn’t deny their rightness.) Is it not time for our priests and pastors to turn away from being lobbyists and turn to building communities of faith to fight the secular world of denial of these building blocks and guidelines?