"As of today, I have retired from criticism of CNN for falling short of some sort of journalistic standard that news providers should maintain. That activity no longer makes sense. Let someone else receive the “ratings, you idiot” replies on Twitter. I’m done. I’m pretty sure you don’t care about this announcement, either. Which nicely illustrates why I’m done.
The immediate cause of action is an amusing but also telling column by Jack Shafer of Reuters: In praise of tabloid TV, which explains why critics of CNN are absurd creatures. If you want coverage of Egypt instead of the Zimmerman trial there’s plenty of places to find it and besides audiences have always loved murder trials, so who are you to tell them they shouldn’t?
Shafer uses something I wrote as his “ha ha, how clueless can you get?” text: this little 99-word Tumblr post. That was kind of annoying because as far as I can tell Shafer agrees with everything I wrote. CNN is making its priorities clear when it sticks with the Zimmerman trial while world events are breaking. Murder trials are like a TV series. Jeff Zucker, CNN’s new president, does want “everyone in his company to know what the priorities are: Mini-series in the center, world events off to the side.” Shafer writes:
In today’s media environment, the media critic who insists that the cable networks follow Egypt and drop Zimmerman is like the nudging dining companion who wants to order both his meal and yours, lest you embarrass him by mistakenly ordering the burger and fries."
"RT (formerly Russia Today) is a Russian state-controlled[1] international television network funded by the federal tax budget of the Russian government.[15][16] It operates pay television or free-to-air channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Russian.
RT is a brand of TV-Novosti, an "autonomous non-profit organization" founded by the Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti in April 2005.[10][17] During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, included ANO "TV-Novosti" on its list of core organizations of strategic importance to Russia.[18][19][20] RT operates as a multilingual service with channels in five languages: the original English-language channel was launched in 2005, the Arabic-language channel in 2007, Spanish in 2009, German in 2014 and French in 2017. RT America (since 2010),[21] RT UK (since 2014) and other regional channels also produce local content. RT is the parent company of the Ruptly video agency,[5][6][7] which owns the Redfish video channel and the Maffick digital media company.[8][9]
RT has been described as a major propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy.[2] Academics, fact-checkers, and news reporters (including some current and former RT reporters) have identified RT as a purveyor of disinformation[43] and conspiracy theories.[49] UK media regulator Ofcom has repeatedly found RT to have breached its rules on impartiality, including multiple instances in which RT broadcast "materially misleading" content.[56]
In 2012, RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan compared the channel to the Russian Ministry of Defence.[57] Referring to the Russo-Georgian War, she stated that it was "waging an information war, and with the entire Western world".[16][58] In September 2017, RT America was ordered to register as a foreign agent with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[59] RT has been banned in Ukraine since 2014,[60] and in Latvia[61] and Lithuania[62] since 2020."
"CNN is cutting 300 jobs amidst its ongoing struggle to retain viewers and compete against partisan rivals. Although once a well-respected organization that delivered hard news, the network has now taken on a “circus, tabloid, almost silly news format,” further adding to the channel’s problems, according to Georgetown University Journalism Professor Christopher Chambers. RT’s Ameera David spoke to the media veteran to get his take."
Whatever happened to the Cable News Network, which if not was the standard at least when it came to cable news if not TV news in general was a standard that had this mentality of “just the facts” without bias’ or trying to report news without political slants. But reporting exactly what’s going on in the world and what is important that they viewers need to know about with intelligent professional analysts who explained what these things meant and not trying to tell us what to think.
And lately CNN hasn’t been the Cable News Network, but more like the News Rating Network, perhaps the OMG Report, reporting on everything awesome and tabloid. Or the Everything Awesome Network, trying to compete with E and perhaps what is now called True TV: “How can we make money and compete with FOX News and tabloid news networks”.
The George Zimmerman trial is a perfect example of CNN's tabloid news drift, but they had the Jodi Arias trial before that. And they seem to have this idea that most Americans aren’t that interested in hard news anymore. And rather know what Kim Kardashian or George Zimmerman had for lunch today. Rather than the turmoil in Egypt the largest country in Arabia experimenting with democracy for the first time ever.
Is cable news a business? Of course it is, anything that’s done by companies are business’s. And of course CNN along with FNC, MSNBC, ABC News and CBS News have to be profitable in order to stay in business. But not at the expense of real journalism. And of course there’s a market for tabloid and other celebrity journalism. But those networks already exist and we already have a network that devotes its matinée programming to the American justice system. Actually, we have several networks like True TV, the Criminal Investigation Network, Investigation Discovery, and others.
These are the cable networks that should be covering tabloid and celebrity news , everything awesome or whatever the hell they want to call it. But not a network that advertises itself as a news network. That use to be the gold standard at least when it came to cable news, but now is looking to find itself and figure out who they want to be after losing viewers to FNC and MSNBC.
Time Warner the parent company of CNN already has a cable network that advertises itself as knowing drama. What’s the TNT tagline? “We know drama” and that would be the place for CNN to broadcast the Zimmerman trial and other celebrity news stories. And leave CNN to be the home of hard news in America at least as it relates to cable TV. Where people go to find out what’s going in the world that’s important.
