Can somebody tell Laura to SHUT UP & let Trump finish an answer?!?!
So frustrating
WGN America’s ‘NewsNation’ looks for viewers who want their news served up opinion-free
By STEPHEN BATTAGLIO STAFF WRITER AUG. 31, 2020 6 AM
FTA
When entrepreneur Ted Turner first launched CNN in the early 1980s without any big name anchors, one of his credos was that the news would be the star of his then-revolutionary new network.
But cable news has evolved in recent years to offer up a steady diet of personalities, politics and points of view. Those elements have driven up the audiences for Fox News, MSNBC and CNN to record levels at a time when other TV networks are struggling to hold onto viewers gravitating to streaming services for their favorite dramas, sitcoms and movies.
Nexstar Media Group, the Irving, Texas-based TV station owner which acquired cable network WGN America as part of its 2019 purchase of Tribune Media, believes the shift to more talk and opinion on cable news has created an opportunity.
On Tuesday, the company will launch “NewsNation,” a nightly three-hour national prime time newscast (8 p.m. Eastern and 5 p.m. Pacific) that promises a neutral, opinion-free presentation of the day’s events, on WGN America.
If successful, Nexstar could expand the format into additional hours and over time turn WGN America, which now airs sitcom and drama reruns, into a serious cable news competitor. Like nearly every other entertainment cable channel, WGN America is losing viewers to streaming services and cord-cutting, and live news offers a chance at reinvention.
Sean Compton, executive vice president for WGN America, said the company has done extensive research that determined there is an appetite for straight-ahead TV news in the evening as an alternative to opinion hosts such as Fox News star Sean Hannity and CNN’s Don Lemon.
“Sean Hannity is not news,” said Compton. “He’s a friend of mine. I worked with him in radio for years. He’d get mad at me for saying that, but it’s true. Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon — that’s not news.”
Nexstar executives insist their promise of a politically neutral newscast is more than a marketing gimmick. Among the 150 people hired for the Chicago-based program (a process Jennifer Lyons, vice president of news for WGN America, described as “speed dating on Zoom”) are two producers dedicated to scrutinizing every story for language that could be construed as biased.
A team of rhetoricians — made up of media consultants and academics — have also been lined up to monitor the fairness of its coverage. Each night they will deliver a report on how the program fared to Lyons’ desk.
The company’s 185 TV stations with 5,400 employees in their local newsrooms will supply much of the reporting from around the country for “News Nation.” The program will have a bureau and a dedicated West Coast correspondent, Nancy Loo, working out of Nexstar’s Los Angeles station KTLA. Reuters will supply international coverage.