Posted on 08/18/2012 6:54:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
What’s wrong with CNN? Rewind to 1991, the first night of the First Gulf War. American attack planes are dropping laser-guided missiles on strategic targets in Baghdad. CNN, with Peter Arnett reporting from Baghdad and Bernard Shaw anchoring from the US, owns the story. So much so that then-NBC News President Michael Gartner gave up on his own news division’s coverage of the outbreak of war and ordered them to carry the CNN feed for the remainder of the evening. (A decision, predictably, that led to Mr. Gartner’s eventual dismissal).
CNN was in that position because its founder, Ted Turner, imagined that it might be, someday. When the day came, it wasn’t luck. It was, to alter Branch Rickey’s phrase, the residue of Mr. Turner’s leadership.
Fast forward to last Sunday. There’s an episode of the “Newsroom” airing on HBO. In it, a “Newsroom” producer shows his fellow “Newsroom” staffers how CNN Headline News anchor Nancy Grace and her production staff shamelessly hype and distort the Casey Anthony story for maximum ratings impact. No one at Time Warner (which owns HBO and CNN) said to anyone at HBO: “you can’t say that about another division of this company.” What was the point? What “Newsroom” creator Aaron Sorkin wrote into last Sunday’s episode wasn’t wrong. It was true.
In a little over twenty years, CNN devolved from the most important television news organization in the world to another channel to skim through or skip over.
But don’t take my word for it. Look at the numbers. In the second quarter of this year, CNN’s primetime ratings basically collapsed. The overall numbers were down horribly and the key demos were down horribly. It was so bad that in primetime, CNN was losing to CNN Headline News, which is a little bit like the Yankees losing to their farm team in Columbus Scranton, every night.
On the day that this ratings news hit the wire, a ritual sacrifice was performed: the executive in charge, Jim Walton, “retired.” Turner Broadcasting CEO Phil Kent, to whom CNN reports, was tasked with the assignment of finding a replacement. The search, as they say, is ongoing.
On one level, CNN’s woes are “first world problems.” CNN Worldwide is profitable (Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes told analysts it would earn $600 million this year). CNN International is respected, widely watched and has the advertising rate cards that prove it. The network in general has a boatload of talented, dedicated, hard-working employees. If war breaks out in two places at once, CNN is probably the only US television news organization that can actually cover both in any kind of depth. And it has, at least in theory, access to the vast journalistic capabilities of the Time Warner magazine group and the (documentary) film-making capabilities of HBO. In short, it possesses the two essential elements of media success: richness and reach.
What it doesn’t have is leadership. It isn’t likely to get it any time soon.
The internal politics of Time Warner explain why. Most of the various division heads would like to have Mr. Bewkes’s job. They can’t, of course, challenge Mr. Bewkes directly. Bad manners, corporate suicide. They can, however, moan about the sorry state of one of the company’s flagship brands (CNN) to selected friends in the press. And they can “offer to help” fix this problem. And make that known to selected friends in the press. All the while, they will be doing everything they can to ensure that a suitably pliant executive is found to replace Mr. Walton. Even Mr. Kent, to whom the new executive will report, has an interest in finding someone who won’t overshadow him.
So the internal politics seem destined to produce more of the same. Without strong leadership, the fiefdoms maintain their power, the supposed “stars” stay in their places (not one hour of Wolf Blitzer, two!) and the network’s programming drifts along. Yes, the US ratings are embarrassing in primetime. Yes, viewership is actually down in an election year. Yes, the website isn’t nearly as good as it could be. Yes, but so what?
This seems to be CNN’s answer to most everything: “yes, but so what?” Consider Erin Burnett, who could be a superstar if properly produced. What does CNN do with her? They give her a not-very-well-produced show in the 7pm slot. To no one’s surprise, it doesn’t do very well.
The thinking, apparently, is that tinkering with the primetime line-up of Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan would be too risky. The exact opposite is true. It couldn’t possibly be less risky to move Ms. Burnett to 9pm and build a real show around her. Almost no one watches Piers Morgan. He is universally un-beloved.
Yes, but so what?
Mr. Bewkes would be well-advised to blow this all up and start fresh. He might begin by floating a story that he is considering hiring someone like Roger Ailes to come fix things at CNN. He might even suggest hiring Mr. Ailes himself, just for fun. That would certainly get everyone’s attention.
The prospect of Mr. Ailes arriving at CNN Headquarters in New York with his wild-eyed band of FNC Hell’s Angels is probably too good to be true. Sad to say. But say this for Mr. Ailes: if he ever did get the job, he would say: “we’re taking this beach, in this way and if you don’t want to help, then get the hell out of the way. ” He would actually lead.
CNN needs that kind of leadership. If it didn’t matter, it wouldn’t matter. But CNN is an important resource, nationally and internationally. CNN actually matters.
The Left’s talent pool is pretty thin, I blame it on the farm system they have in place which produces non-entities with little in that name of education beyond a small leftist cult’s talking point(s).
Then CNN decided to go solely for the prime advertising demographic of 'dumb sluts' and eradicated any view, or 'views' that might appeal to normal people. Especially males.
They made a lot of money, for quite a while, doing that.
If i recall correctly , both Arnett and Shaw were in Baghdad at the time.
They did their live report from under the bed in a hotel room.
They also refused to be debriefed by the US military upon their return, saying the usual BS about they being above country loyalties"' etc.
Then something happened. Well, two things. 1) The Gulf War, and 2) Bill Clinton. Some kind of psychotic break occurred in that organization during that time and they became anti-war nutters that fell head over heels in love with Bill Clinton. They've never come back.
Soon after I watched them dismantle a good and decent president (Bush 1) in a completely partisan fashion, I stopped watching CNN and went into a news black hole until Fox News came along. I've never watched CNN voluntarily since. Since I travel a lot I get stuck with it in airports sometime and can see it's gotten nothing but worse since I left.
And what do people remember from that? Bernie cowering under the table! And then getting the hell out of the country, leaving Arnett to fend for himself...
"So much so that then-NBC News President Michael Gartner gave up on his own news division’s coverage of the outbreak of war and ordered them to carry the CNN feed for the remainder of the evening. (A decision, predictably, that led to Mr. Gartner’s eventual dismissal)."
His dismissal was because he was a newspaper nebbish completely out of his element in 24/7 news coverage.
"Fast forward to last Sunday. There’s an episode of the “Newsroom” airing on HBO. In it, a “Newsroom” producer shows his fellow “Newsroom” staffers how CNN Headline News anchor Nancy Grace and her production staff shamelessly hype and distort the Casey Anthony story for maximum ratings impact. No one at Time Warner (which owns HBO and CNN) said to anyone at HBO: “you can’t say that about another division of this company.” What was the point? What “Newsroom” creator Aaron Sorkin wrote into last Sunday’s episode wasn’t wrong. It was true."
So Mushroom Head won a stopped-clock contest? Who cares...
Sorkin would rather make money off the meta than actually address the miscarriage of justice. That makes him every bit as scummy as he pretends Nancy Grace is, or even Casey Anthony...
Lynne Russell was a favorite of mine on KENS tv in San Antonio.
Watched her now and then on Headline News.
What the heck happened to HLN? It used to be a half hour of bang/bang news.
Last time I saw it (a few years back) it was like the love child of Jerry Springer and Oprah Winfrey: complete crap.
They should change the name to DNN....Democrat News Network. Maybe Dems would watch it.
So they'll just co-feed The Food Channel, which is basically him, Alton, and Fat Boy.
Bernard Shaw was reporting from a hotel room in Baghdad along with John Holliman. A comment on this 41 second clip says "This has to be one of the most powerful news broadcasts in the history of modern media." Anyway, I don't know how you could forget that Bernard Shaw was there.
They were good until Gulf War I when that whole Arnett business started. Then they turned into an advocate for the democrats which made it almost unwatchable.
Only as a source of fiction ...
Yes, it's downright quaint....
I have a friend who was overseas recently and was appalled at the anti-USA slant of CNN in other countries. If you want to know where other countries get their anti-American bias, CNN stands as a prime example of what is hurting us. The reason CNN is NOT watched here and yet makes a profit world-wide is because they foster the hatred and disrespect for this country that many of them already crave. CNN feeds the animosity toward this country cravenly. The fact that this organization is given any access to our politicians and our events is sad - they should be treated like Al Jazzera - since their mission is pretty much the same.
This would be one of my life’s dream to dismantle CNN and turn it into the Conservative News Network. I would take great delight in giving a lot of them their pink slips. It’s not just the anchors/reporters its also the producers who are even more left wing.
In 1992 CNN was the only news organization that had the gravitas and the people on the ground to be the ‘go to’ news organization. Now there is no news organization, I can turn on to get an honest news story. And do not for God’s sake say; Fox News. The thought of Shepard Smif or any of their “opinion journalist” doing a breaking big news story makes me want to barf. Maybe a Roger Ailes at CNN could resuscitate it.
TW's corporate culture has been savage and anoxic for 30 years. It blasts and destroys everything it touches, including people.
I'd watch CNN today if Lynn Russell was still there.
The guys at Breitbart need to get busy finding and breaking into the replacement for Ezra Klein's JournoList blog, and archiving their stuff and then dumping it all over the Web so we can see a) who's in the cabal and b) what they've been up to.
There were a number of big names that weren't on the JournoList. They were talking to one another somewhere else .... but never got outed. They need to be tracked down, found out, archived, and blitzed.
Glenn Beck says he has more paying viewers at GBTV than CNN (Communist News Network) has people viewing for free.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
