Should cable TV news just say the hell with it, give up on squaresville concepts such as “objectivity” and “hard news,” and frame every big story as a dramatic debate, with anchors acting as partisan referees hosting bellicose ideologues as guest experts?
It certainly seems that way, if you look at the ratings. The report that CNN (a Time Warner company, as is EW) is regularly finishing fourth behind Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN’s sister-channel HLN (what we used to call Headline News) is pretty striking. Notice I didn’t say “dismaying.” Or “depressing.” For me, TV news — whether we’re talking network news (which still clings to some fuddy-duddy notion of upholding the standards of Edward R. Murrow while stuffing broadcasts with crap like “Person Of The Week”) or cable news (where the hard news reported by Anderson Cooper is preceded by Larry King, the latter being what the great film director Preston Sturges termed “a gossip-schmearer”) — has long been pretty useless.
When was the last time a TV news organization broke an important story? Or launched an original investigation that turned up evidence of wrong-doing, or brought down lawbreakers in high places?
Instead, we get Brian Williams polishing his stand-up act on Jon Stewart or David Letterman. And every once in a while, CBS lets Lara Logan remind us that things are going really poorly in Afghanistan and its neighboring regions, and you get the feeling the network does that because Lara Logan, beyond her unassailable skills as a boots-on-the-ground reporter, can even make a burka look sexy.
What’s the solution for CNN, if it wants to maintain its history for reporting the news as straight-down-the-middle objectively as TV news manages to get? Well, the obvious answer is, they have to forget the ratings and slog on. (That’s what corporations used to occasionally do: concede that one property wasn’t going to make a lot of money, but was necessary for status and the good of the nation.)
Or CNN can go the Fox/MSNBC route and start restocking its shelves with new brands, replacing its current shows with partisan-debate programming that’ll attract viewers who want to know what their noise is about.
Do you get your news from cable TV? If so, what channels? What do you think CNN should do about its poor ratings?
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Photo Credit: Beck: Fox News; Cooper: CNN; Maddow: Ali Goldstein/NBC
CNN objective? Right. Clinton News Network at one time, it had ratings then. Now its just Cankery Numbing News. Boring and Liberal
hahahah agreed!
Conservative News Network. I think we can all make up clever names that go with CNN. Consistently Neoconservative News. The list could go on and on…like Lou Dobbs does.
I miss the good old days when real solid newsmen like Peter Jennings (circa 1980s) gave the news – now all we have are fluff human interest stories that don’t qualify as news. BBC world news is a great example of actual WORLD news – there is news out there in the world such that we need not be bound by balloon boys
Except that CNN is clearly liberal, so those names wouldn’t apply.
SeaNN
CNN is trying so hard not to be called liberal nowadays it’s absurd. Rather than reporting factual information, they simply find a two people to discuss both sides. Obama’s agenda? One for, one against. New report pointing to global warming? One for, one against. Proof of gravity? One for, one against.
Not anymore!
wrong
Major chink in the armor on this piece. CNN objective…oh, I laugh.
Fox News does not report any news. It simply a payed for conservative machine used to convince middle America that the country is going downhill because of the Democrats and Barack Obama.
Don’t confuse the commentary/opinion shows with the actual news programs.
But it’s the opinion shows that make up most of their broadcasting and get most of their ratings.
Quirky:
That’s true. But it’s also true of MSNBC, CNN, etc. It’s not just Fox News that has opinion shows, it’s just that Fox’s opinion shows have a conservative lean to them.
To the Dude:
Yes, I don’t deny that MSNBC is as biased to the left as Fox is to the right. My point is that Fox News would be nothing without those opinion shows. Most Fox fans aren’t tuning in for regular news they’re tuning in for Glenn Beck, Hannity, Fox and Friends, O’Reilly, etc. and the ratings show that. You say to not confuse the opinion shows with the actual news, my question is, what actual news is there on Fox (or even MSNBC and CNN)?
Fox News *does* report news until 5 p.m. when its opinion shows begin. the continual focus on glenn beck and hannity disregards the many hours of legitimate and unbiased news coverage that occurs during the day.
and let’s not get started on political machines.
To bad most people are working during the real news segments then eh?
Spoken by someone who obviously has never watched FOX news, but has picked up the talking points from the White House and the MSM.
Fox News stops being a news organization when they start promoting and organizing tea parties…it’s one thing to cover them, it’s quite another to have a hand in setting them up. They can have all the conservative opinions they want, but once you insert yourself into activism of any kind, you can no longer call yourself a news organization.
Shi, you can call yourselves a news organization, but it should be understood that you’re not neutral. There’s nothing wrong with being opinionated news, like the Drudge Report, but you can’t call yourself non-biased or expect the same consistent treatment as non-partisan groups. When you’re partisan, the party in charge determines whether or not you have access. Fox got tons of exclusives in the Bush WH, they would’ve gotten tons in the McCain WH, they get nothing with Obama. It’s the nature of opinionated news aggregators.
I think the point of the article is that people won’t watch any of the “news” channels now unless they are truth-stretchingly partisan. Don’t kid yourself that any of them are objective. Whether you like Fox or MSNBC just depends on your definition of “truth”.
You know CBS, NBC, ABC, Washington Post, NY Times, NY Post etc aren’t much better. Listen to the news carefully and you’ll hear reporters saying things like “Controversial study” when it is sponsered by “Big Drug Companies” as compared to totally respectable studies when run by political pollers. And note the “Big Drug Companies” verses “pharmaceutical companies.” The news is filtered through the opinion of the anchor.
Corben – I don’t know where to start on how uneducated you are. You are doing and saying exactly what this administration wants you too! It is people like you who will advocate for Americas loss of free speech. Fox is not a conservative machine. If you watched Fox you would know there are liberal and conservative leaning journalists on Fox. People who say what you say OBVIOUSLY don’t watch Fox. I watch Fox because I want the facts. Just the facts, and you can get real news and facts on Fox. I do tune i to other stations as well, but the likes of Joy Behar and Nancy Grace do nothing for me. And Anderson Cooper…He is so left leaning-how can he be objective?
When I was a nanny, the father had the television on Fox News pretty much 24/7, so I think it is fairly safe to say that I’ve watched a lot of it throughout the day, and unless it has changed a lot in the last 5 years, I would have to agree with the people who say that Fox News is a “conservative machine”. As one person said above, when the station becomes an activist behind promoting conservative rallies rather than just covering them, they’ve crossed a line. I mean, just compare their coverage of the tea party rallies vs. the gay rights rally. Or any other conservative/liberal story split.
I don’t have a problem with Fox News existing. Just as I don’t with MSNBC existing. I just wish that A) they wouldn’t misrepresent stories and B) people who watch wouldn’t claim that it is “unbiased”.
Michelle H
Please “educate me” on your qualifications to judge others opinions. I honestly hope you are not raising small children to be so close minded, in fact, I hope you don’t even have pets!
My education was learned on the street of hard knocks and I am quite proud of how educated I have become with my determination to sort out truth from fiction.
I watch a lot of tv News, as I have been ill and homebound for months.
Fox News has little real news, and is slanted right. It also creates “news” stories, like by promoting the tea parties, the Obama birth cerificate “scandal”, the “death panels”, and lots more. They are lying when they promote themselves as “fair and balanced”.
MCNBC has a number of people who are clearly biased. Scarborough to the right, and Olbermann & Maddow to the left. But those people on MSNBC who are partisan don’t hide their partisanship. But they also will go against “their side” when they disagree. Scarborough has often called out Republicans, and Olbermann has called out Democrats. Maddow does put conservatives on her show to promote their views. And I’ve never seen anyone on MSNBC turn off the microphone of someone who disagreed with them.
CNN isn’t totally non-partisan, especially Lou Dobbs. But they have a much larger offering of real news than any other network. Larry King can’t be considered hard news, but besides him and Dobbs, most of the network is real news.
Each network has people who are, IMHO, out of touch with reality and biased without any sense of logic. Glen Beck on Fox, Ed Schultz on MSNBC, Lou Dobbs on CNN, Nancy Grace on HLN (why have trials when Nancy can decide if someone is guilty without any evidence?) These people can’t be considered journalists in any sense of the word. They are self-promoters, who elevate themselves, making the stories about them.
If Fox works for the GOP, then MSNBC has been taking money from the Dems for every program after 9 AM. I’d respect them a lot more if they gave someone like Tim Russert, who was so fair that I didn’t know he was a liberal until after he died, a prime-time slot. The closest they have is Chuck Todd, who was great doing election coverage last year.
Sadly, the era of objective news is dead and gone. No news channel is reporting “just the facts”, with Fox on the right and CNN and MSNBC on the left. Murrow is spinning in his grave, and probably has been for quite some time.
chris matthews is pretty fair. he said he voted for bush (in either 2000 or 2004) and it was pretty clear he was for Obama this past election. you cannot peg him, politically.
You’re right about Tim Russert, you can have opinions and still be liked, and not kiss anyone’s Butt. Very Rare! Fox is what it is, and certainly outnumbered. There’s plenty of unbiased news there. HLN gets time from me, but “Nancy” is getting a little carried away with herself.She does perform a public service,so I watch regularly.
I don’t need Fox to tell me the country is going downhill because of Obama and the Democrats
Most Fox viewers don’t. They just like having their previous beliefs validated by an independent source.
I watch CNN. I can’t handle the right wing propaganda on Fox. at any rate, 24 hours news has become a scavenging monster that feeds on the carrion of celebrity misdeeds.
I don’t watch cable or network news most of the time. I watch a little local news in the morning as I get ready for work but that’s 30 minutes at most and covers mainly local news weather and sports.
If I want to check up on actual news I go to cnn.com, foxnews.com or similar sites online and try to trudge through the bias to figure out what the actual story is.
There was a time when we had a fair and independent media that was the people’s check on government. Those days are long gone as we hit the 24 hour news cycle where speculation is regarded as actual news and the people seem to care more about what Paris Hilton is wearing rather than what latest affront to our basic rights congress is making. Because ratings and profit have trumped the desire to actually report news that affects our lives.
It’s a rather sad state of affairs really.
Leave CNN alone! It is the only one I can stand to watch.
Lovely!
Watching FOX or MSNBC is nauseating not because of their bias, but because of their claims of not spinning the news. (The OReiley Factor – entering the no spin zone) -puke-
Yeah – years ago when it first started getting attention, I thought the O’Reilly Factor was being sarcastic about the “no spin zone.” Turns out, Bill was ridiculously acting like he was serious about it. If Bill can live with himself making his big money purposely putting on his show, that is his choice. But why insult the intelligence of the country by continuing the “no spin” nonsense.
I can’t stand Bill O’Reilly. Every time I hear him on television I want to throw a shoe at the TV.
I will make it easy for the news cables …. I don’t watch. Since I have stop watching this circus freaks my life is so much brighter, I can smile and feel hhmm less scare. YES! I do read the news .. I know what is going on the world and home … but I do NOT have to sit hours and hours on networks where people that are paid to talk … bring me down or make me angry …. Forget them!!
Look! A big shiny balloon!
Awesome! You just made me laugh at loud.
We will stay with this live camera shot in the hopes that the young boy possibly inside doesn’t plummet to his death on live TV. That would be awful. Not so awful that we’ll stop showing a live feed, but absolutely awf- Ooh, was that? Wait, just a bird. Like I said folks, live TV, anything can happen, hopefully nothing bad (but it could be really messy so stay tuned).
i love cnn. i don’t think ratings matter as long as they report the news right. all news stations have their flaws.
*but all new stations have their flaws is what i meant.
Actually I rarely watch the cable news shows on TV anymore. I get most of my news directly from their websites instead. It allows me to better filter through all of the annoying banter.
I agree, most of my news comes from Yahoo’s homepage or CNN.com. As far as “analysis”, I tune in to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
You’re saying you don’t like “Could this common household product kill you and your family in their sleep? Details after the break.”
I tend to favor particular people instead of networks. My favorite is Brian Williams, but since this is about cable, I tend to favor Anderson Cooper. I don’t know what Cooper’s personal politics are, which is how it should be.
word
I agree. Cooper and Williams are the only two I can watch, along with the folks on PBS.
i go to the same university as Brian Williams’ daughter, and i’m on one of her classes. once i found out he was her dad, i instantly thought she was cooler.
* in one of…
My main news source these days is the power hour of “The Daily Show”/”The Colbert Report.” Even though they’re comedy shows, they STILL do a better job than the so-called “news” channels of talking about the current issues. Then if I want more info, I go on-line and read the AP and Reuters stories.
I agree – TDS and CR are actually very informative, and often have on interesting, knowledgeable guests. Jon Stewart especially is great at going for the tough questions, and is intelligent and quick witted enough to follow up with more questions and make very good points.
I watched Rachel Maddow for a while but lost interest. I like Brian Williams but rarely watch him. Can’t stand Fox’s evening programs and got bored by MSNBC’s, and most of the daytime anchors on all the networks are fairly annoying.
For a quick update on breaking news, I usually check CNN quickly.
Jon Stewart does do great interviews. I was impressed that he was the first one to ask Betsy McCaughy to ask him where in the health care bill did it talk about death panels, and mandates. She couldn’t find any such things in the bill. Yet on Fox and CNN, she was taken at her word that these things were in there. Good for you Jon!
I agree, too. What better way to learn about the ridiculous leanings of ALL the cable news networks than to watch the satirists?
National news I see on internet websites.
Local news I watch a local affilliate TV in the morning.
Fox news is the best. Say what you will that they lean conservative, but they report fair and balance news from both sides. They have a couple of programs that are stong believers in the Constitution of the United States, but what is wrong with that? Nothing that I can see.
(COUGH)Bulls**t
LOL.
Fox News is FAIR and BALANCED, FAIR and BALANCED. Who are you trying to convince, us or yourself?
Their news programming is rather fair and balanced. Their opinion programming (like Beck and Hannity) leans far to the right.
I would much rather watch a channel where liberals and conservative have a voice (Fox) than a channel where they throw conservatives to the wolves (MSNBC).
II – seriously? You’re wrong. This morning I watched Morning Joe on MSNBC. The discussion was conducted by Joe Scarborough, Pat Buchanan, Dan Senor, and P.J. O’Rourke–all conservatives! The only others there were Mika and Halperin from Time. Not one self-described liberal there! Get your facts straight. MSNBC leans left but I’d wager they have more conservatives on regularly than Fox has liberals.
“self-described” That’s precisely part of the problem. After graduating from American universities, the large majority of reporters are so far liberally indoctrinated that they think their liberal perspective is fair and balanced. Remember the biggest bias in media isn’t how they report the news, it’s what news they report. The meetings with US drug makers could have been huge multi-week news that would seriously undermine the president’s ability to get this legislation through, but rather the story was pushed under the rug
@anazagarus – Liberals don’t become reporters, reporters gradually become liberal. Their job is to go document the worst situations in life and the natural instinct is to help people. Conservatives, by their own admission, want smaller gov’t and for people to be self-reliant. When your job is to document people who have been given an absolutely raw deal and can’t pull themselves up, you want gov’t intervention. You become liberal.
What did PT Barnum say about fooling some of the people all of the time? Sorry Georgia Peach but you’ve been had if you think Fox is “fair” or “balanced” or “strong believers in the Constitution” – read the document for yourself and then try saying what you said again with a straight face
If something big is happening, I tune into CNN, otherwise I get pretty much all my news from cnn.com and the website for my local newspaper (Austin American Statesman). I don’t think Fox even has foreign correspondents…that’s how much they care about what’s going on in the world.
No one just gives the news in black and white anymore. Everyone has to throw in an ugly or negative comment. He did this or he did that or she said this and she said that. It also has turned into a big entertainment show with silly background music, sounds, jokes and just unnecessary stuff. I just want the news without any derogatory comment towards anyone and I mean that from both sides and all sides. I will stick with my local news, it gives me what I need without the stupid theatrics.