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How CNN Lost its Way
Townhall.com ^ | December 5, 2013 | Matt Towery

Posted on 12/05/2013 4:16:43 PM PST by Kaslin

ATLANTA -- Let's be honest, no matter how one paints it or spins it, CNN is a news network in trouble.

I can talk about this because I have known far too many former CNN leaders, anchors, and alumni to not know a little bit about the history of the company.

And let's be clear, the new man at the helm, Jeff Zucker, formerly of NBC is not the man to blame for the network's precarious position. He has tried many a new move and likely will attempt more as this once king-of-cable news continues to attempt to find its place in a world it once dominated.

But make no mistake, his task is mighty and time may not be his friend.

The demise of CNN can be traced to three names -- Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes. It's that simple.

Turner started out in his business life as a conservative Republican and continued to walk a fine line between his pro-GOP past and his later tilt to the left during the early years of CNN. Yes, he was seen in the company of incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s and into 1980, but that could hardly be viewed as a huge transgression given his ties to Carter's native Georgia.

But in the early '80s he attended some Reagan fundraisers and literally set up shop in then-Georgia Republican U.S. Sen. Mack Mattingly's office as he sought to fight legislation he viewed as a big network attack on his fledgling company. And while Turner became increasingly flamboyant and liberal, his passion for covering breaking news and doing so with as little bias as possible was unwavering.

Ironically, CNN's big break came during the 1990 war in Iraq. Turner managed to get hold of a then-virtually unheard of camera operated by satellite, and his man in Bagdad captured riveting and live shots of U.S. missiles striking the city in an effort, led by a Republican president, to end aggression by Saddam Hussein.

Its stock soared, and by 1996, with its world headquarters hosting the Olympic games and CNN dominating the world of cable news, Ted Turner chose to sell to Time Warner. It is a move I believe Turner regrets in many ways to this very day.

About this same time media mogul Rupert Murdoch persuaded likely the best political and corporate media mind of our lifetime, Roger Ailes, to leave what would become MSNBC and run Fox News. The rest, as they say, is history.

Understand that, allegedly, Turner and Murdoch have been "feuding" for years, with most of the feud coming from the Turner side. That said, it's likely that the two have much more in common than meets the eye.

Both Murdoch and Turner enjoy phenomenal business sense. Both are entrepreneurs willing to creatively imagine and ultimately see to fruition very big dreams. And both men chose to rely on the best talent they could find to help them reach their goals.

But Turner chose to leave the playing field and pursue numerous other interests while Murdoch continued to be actively in the game and in control. And while Murdoch's chosen cable news chief, Ailes, remained a focused and innovative constant at Fox, Time Warner went through numerous machinations and the inner-leadership at CNN bounced around from true news-types to whatever.

MSNBC finally found a voice by taking ownership of whatever left-leaning audience there might be for cable news. If one considers the likes of Al Sharpton informative or credible, then MSNBC is a perfect, albeit quirky, fit.

But CNN has been left with no clear audience and, most alarmingly, a lack of the Turner-style zest for fighting to be the best at reporting breaking news. The evidence in that can be found year's earlier when, under Ailes' leadership, Fox chose to be the first network to run a constant ticker with updated news during 9-11. Like Turner's satellite camera of years earlier, that ticker symbolized a rise to prominence and is now an industry standard.

Now Mr. Zucker is reportedly moving with lightning speed to put zest in slow-moving news programs and put entertainment to the forefront of the CNN Headline brand.

But time is his enemy, and ratings may be his undoing. Mr. Ailes, who might as well have invented the secret formula to Atlanta's best-known export, Coca-Cola, now seems to have complete command over his competition. His primetime shows are destroying the competition, even in the most sought after age demographics.

And as for Mr. Turner, whose son, it should be noted, recently ran as a Republican for Congress in South Carolina, there is little doubt that, regardless of his political views, his business sense and entrepreneurial style are much lacking at CNN.

Recently, the Atlanta Braves, once also owned by Ted Turner, announced that they would be leaving the City of Atlanta for the northern suburbs and would abandon the stadium named after Turner and nicknamed "The Ted."

The real question now is whether CNN will become a diminished shell of its past. Will that famed neon CNN emblem someday burn out and disappear as well? Time, moving so quickly, will tell.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: cnn; commienewsnetwork; leftwingmedia; tedturner; television
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1 posted on 12/05/2013 4:16:43 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Ted Turner...

Any questions?


2 posted on 12/05/2013 4:19:05 PM PST by DoughtyOne (May his name be striken from every tablet stone building and never be said again short of treason!)
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To: Kaslin

Doesn’t matter one bit. The MSM is 1 billion times more powerful than God, and they gave us the Marxist, Kenyan, bisexual dirtbag. Live with it, deal with it. Our dreams of a diminished MSM were just that—dreams. Katie Couric told the ignorant pig-dog filth known as the American voter to vote for the Kenyan, and they did. Who cares about CNN?


3 posted on 12/05/2013 4:23:51 PM PST by Doctor 2Brains
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To: DoughtyOne

“Any questions?”

Yeah.

Why did God make the sky blue?


4 posted on 12/05/2013 4:25:21 PM PST by lowbridge
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To: Kaslin
CNN will become a diminished shell of its past

Became, already.

5 posted on 12/05/2013 4:28:09 PM PST by Dan(9698)
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To: Kaslin

The problem with CNN was its Hard Leftist slant on the news.

I grew so tired of it I requested FoxNews from my cable provider at least five years before I they finally gave in and brought it on board.

Once available, I had watched my last CNN program.

In some ways, I thought CNN had a better network. I thought they were able to provide faster coverage and perhaps a little better immediate coverage. It didn’t matter. I had been lied to and told stuff I knew better than to believe so many times, I didn’t want to bother listening to their hard Left propagandists even during national emergencies.

Who wants to watch Islamic Clerics leading out 09/11 memorial ceremonies, with the network commentator telling you what a wonderful thing it is, not a question of the moral implications whatsoever?

CNN is in the tank, because good red-blooded American citizens can’t stand to listen to it any longer. Who knew?

Those with money to buy the products their advertisers are selling, listen to FoxNews. Those that don’t are on welfare and sapping us dry on other programs.

I’m sure illegal immigrants buy CNN’s advertiser’s goods..., aren’t you?

This is a Capitalist Free Enterprise economy. Somehow the socialists forget that their pipe dreams don’t work in the real world.

Adios CNN.

Dios? LOL, CNN can’t believe in Christianity. It’s a Communist News Network.

Go without God CNN. You always have.


6 posted on 12/05/2013 4:29:26 PM PST by DoughtyOne (May his name be striken from every tablet stone building and never be said again short of treason!)
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To: lowbridge

Why not?


7 posted on 12/05/2013 4:30:03 PM PST by DoughtyOne (May his name be striken from every tablet stone building and never be said again short of treason!)
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

Thanks Kaslin.

Partisan Media Shills is what happened to CNN.

The last journalists retired from or quit CNN after their careers were torpedoed as company policy.

I think we all remember Bernard Shaw’s nailing of the incompetent wretch Michael Dukakis:

The Kitty Dukakis Rape Question 1988
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUXz4wFDAo0

CNN’s Bernard Shaw destroys Michael Dukakis in 1988 Presidential Debate - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9_pRmRlzY4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Shaw_(journalist)

http://www.nndb.com/people/175/000024103/

[snip] In his career, Shaw won two Emmys, four ACE Awards, and a Peabody. When he announced his retirement from CNN in 2000, CNN covered it through their “entertainment desk”. [/snip]


8 posted on 12/05/2013 4:35:42 PM PST by SunkenCiv (http://www.freerepublic.com/~mestamachine/)
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To: DoughtyOne

Hanoi Ted.


9 posted on 12/05/2013 4:42:57 PM PST by SC_Pete
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To: Kaslin

CNN and MSNBC would both go the way of the dodo bird if cable tv is ever served up ala carte.


10 posted on 12/05/2013 4:43:33 PM PST by erod (I'm a Chicagoan till Chicago ends...)
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To: Kaslin

Nope.

CNN went for the prime advertising demographic- young (18 to 40) women.
Now no one else can stand to watch the channel.
On FOX, those young women can get a guy to sit next to them.
CNN and MSNBC are fighting over the same prized but small demographic of women who’d prefer not to have a man around...

Since MSNBC also forsakes all other demographics for those women both of them are fighting for the same product for their advertisers.

CNN had Lynne Russel back when it was a real news channel, since then it’s been run into the ground by demography ‘numbers people’.


11 posted on 12/05/2013 4:45:11 PM PST by mrsmith (Dumb sluts: Lifeblood of the Media, Backbone of the Democrat Party!)
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To: mrsmith

Wow I remember Lynne Russell. She was a monument.

currently living in Canada, a gun rights advocate, and blogging at
http://www.lynnerussell.blogspot.com/


12 posted on 12/05/2013 4:50:51 PM PST by nascarnation (Wish everyone see a "Gay Kwanzaa")
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To: Kaslin
The 900 pound gorilla in the room that the writer ignores is that CNN took a decidedly leftward tilt when Ted started dating Hanoi Jane.

Once you turn left, you're forever bereft.

13 posted on 12/05/2013 4:51:44 PM PST by FredZarguna (The sequel, thoroughly pointless, derivative, and boring was like all James Cameron "films.")
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To: SC_Pete


14 posted on 12/05/2013 4:55:01 PM PST by rlmorel ("A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral." A. Hamilton)
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To: DoughtyOne

I remember CNN in the halcyon days of the late 1970’s when they showed the father of a boy who was kidnapped, raped and killed by a homosexual dirtbag, wait for him in the Baton Rouge airport, step out from behind a column and blow the pervs brains out. They showed it every half hour, on the hour, for a week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi3Hyxuf5AE starts at about 40 seconds


15 posted on 12/05/2013 5:01:28 PM PST by Ouderkirk (To the left, everything must evidence that this or that strand of leftist theory is true)
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To: Kaslin
And let's be clear, the new man at the helm, Jeff Zucker, formerly of NBC is not the man to blame for the network's precarious position. He has tried many a new move and likely will attempt more as this once king-of-cable news continues to attempt to find its place in a world it once dominated.

I stopped reading right there. Did they hire any non-leftists to add any balance to their channel?? No, of course not.

16 posted on 12/05/2013 5:02:52 PM PST by GeronL (Extra Large Cheesy Over-Stuffed Hobbit)
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To: SC_Pete

Exactly right. Good job!!


17 posted on 12/05/2013 5:11:15 PM PST by jwalsh07
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To: Kaslin

If they didn’t try to think too much CNN was best for hard breaking news.


18 posted on 12/05/2013 5:22:14 PM PST by Mike Darancette (Do The Math)
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To: DoughtyOne

Going from conservative to liberal shows signs of MENTAL ILLNESS. This is re-enforced if you heard Turner talk recently about AGW and other leftist movements.


19 posted on 12/05/2013 5:25:38 PM PST by spawn44 (MOO)
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To: jwalsh07

Leftist billionaires are dangerous hypocrites. Some, like George Soros, are pure evil.


20 posted on 12/05/2013 5:54:34 PM PST by SC_Pete
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