Saturday, August 25, 2007

When Did CNN Turn to Crap?

I used to watch CNN and regularly read their webpage CNN.com and it was a good source of news. But lately it has all turned to celebrity garbage and Springer type news. Here are a few of the choice tidbits they've been posting lately:

Camp for those who see dead people

"Anchorwoman" pulled after one episode

Lohan gets 1 day jail, 10 in community service

Nicole Richie spends 82 minutes in jail (she must have had a better lawyer than Paris)

Put away the suit and heels

Banning boxers and thongs (next they'll go after muffin tops and whaletails).

Nowhere to be found on their website is any investigative journalism, while MSN has been running an investigative piece on the shoddy treatment of Iraq corruption whistle blowers.

CNN also dropped their education section, which was no big loss as they generally recycled PR releases from the big corporations and think-tanks to make them look like news.

I think I may be switching to a new news source.

13 comments:

Dr Pezz said...

While I don't agree with the direction, I understand. Those news agencies must "sell" the news, and so much of the population wants entertainment and pseudo-news that the agencies begin to alter they format. It's a sad state of what the national consciousness may be becoming.

CaliforniaTeacherGuy said...

Daily newspapers ain't half bad!

Anonymous said...

Wow, you're a bit late coming to this conclusion. I turned off CNN forever when Eason Jordan admitted false reporting--turning a blind eye to Saddam's atrocities--just to maintain a news bureau in Baghdad. AND when CNN's reporting became so overwhelmingly anti-American and biased toward the left. AND if that wasn't enough, when CNN broadcast jihadi propaganda in the form of a jihadist video depicting a terrorist sniper shooting an American soldier, it was all I could do to restrain myself from violence, so yes, I haven't watched CNN since, and I've been very, very happy and much more accurately informed. Try Fox.

Anonymous said...

I haven't watched CNN since, and I've been very, very happy and much more accurately informed. Try Fox.

Sorry, but no one who watches Fox is accurately informed. I'm sure you're happy, in the sense that people were "happy" lying stoned on opium benches while the real world went on outside of their cocoon. Fox News is a lying propaganda machine for the Republican Party, and that's all it is.

Hugh O'Donnell said...

And the answer is...more than one news source.

The other answer is...who can keep up?

The question I have is, even with excellent critical thinking skills, how are people supposed to make sense out of the world unless professional journalism can regain its sense of objectivity?

Dr Pezz said...

Fox Noise aside, I think the consolidation of the media into fewer and fewer hands should alarm everyone. He who controls the information controls everything.

Mike in Texas said...

There's a great line from a John Mayer song:

"When they own the information they can bend it all they want"

Which is why I don't watch FoxNews, and I agree with different mike's feelings on them.

CNN has rolled with what they thought were the winds of change, less real news, celebrity garbage, and most of all, they have become instruments of the Republican party. Note the lack of any news on NCLB, think its a coincidence they dumped their education section when NCLB was being discussed for reauthorization?

CNN also gave the private student loan industry a pass. I can't recall one story they did on it, and they certainly did not have any in-depth, hard-hitting news.

Mister Teacher said...

I DID watch that one episode of Anchorwoman though, and it was pretty funny (and the chick was
HOT!!!)

Anonymous said...

Dear Mike and different mike:

Sorry gents, but I have to disagree with you about Fox, which is anything but a wing of the Republican party. Fox may be reasonably said to be perhaps a bit right of center, but they appear to be right wing only because the rest of the MSM is so far to the left that the center looks like the right.

Take, for example, virtually any FOX news talk show (opinion shows are a different matter and on Fox, are clearly labeled as such) such as Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. On their discussion panel, always included are an equal number of journalists with a right and left bent, and they are given equal time to make their points. Can this be said about any of the other MSM outlets?

No, Fox is not possessed of all virtue, and anyone who slavishly relies on a single news source for their information is doing themselves a disservice, but considering what's out there, Fox does, overall, best in adhering to actual journalism.

Dr Pezz said...

Mike, I absolutely disagree with your take on Fox.

The Republicans used on that show are the best and brightest while bringing in the weakest of left pundits. Hannity and Colmes is a great example where the younger, suave Hannity is paired with the meek, geeky Colmes. Colmes is barely a Democrat.

This is the same pattern when the panels are created--strong, charismatic righties and weak moderates touted as lefties.

Fox is an obvious neoconservative mouthpiece with the talking points handed out, which is why the same lines and points are used throughout the day.

EHT said...

I prefer online sources like Drudge...a nice round up of assorted crap. Face it...you have to take the news at face value and if you are interested in following a particular story you need to visit at least three sources to figure out the whole thing. Problem is....the majority of Americans just take what is being said as gospel at every turn.

Kristin said...

I completely hate all of the american news channels now, fox, cnn...the whole lot! I started sticking to just the WSJ and NYT and international herald occasionally now on the weekends. I'm not interested in being told what I want to hear anymore from television news. In fact, I'm about to toss out my television!

Unknown said...

Broadcast news in general is terrible, the absolute bottom of the barrel, and CNN has certainly gone straight down the toilet. It gets confusing because CNN maintains a web site that blurs itself with print media, which still remains in my eyes a more suitable source of news in spite of its problems. Sadly, print media is dying because people (including myself) don't pay enough attention to it, but get too easily distracted by the garbage that floods the TV and the Net. Fox is not a good alternative, they are just as bad, maybe worse.