Why Does Cnn Suck?

In These Times › August 18, 2009

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Summary

Another minor scandal is how much attention CNN paid to the Anna Nicole Smith melodrama, bombarding us with Anna Nicole experts-how does one become an Anna Nicole expert?-while relishing the repeated use of the word "decomposing." The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) has begun a news index on its Web site that monitors, in part, how the cable channels fill their news hole: The week of Feb. 4, when debates about U.S. policy in Iraq were 12 percent of the news hole, Anna Nicole filled 10 percent of it. Explained Wolf Blitzer, "That's the only story we reported for two solid hours ... we just couldn't help ourselves." By contrast, Anna Nicole was not in the top five stories covered in PEJ's sample of newspapers. The following week, Anna Nicole continued to dominate the cable talk shows, with the likes of the ever-shrill Nancy Grace gnawing this bone of a story to its meatless end. Is it any wonder that public confidence in the news media continues to decline?

Almost every night, Jon Stewart makes fun of the cable channels, especially CNN. The network was reportedly bombarded by complaints about the wall-to-wall, breast-to-breast Anna Nicole coverage. But the ridicule and complaints seem not to matter: CNN, with a few exceptions here and there, continues down its slope of triviality, superficiality and sensationalism. On the day after the Libby verdict, CNN's lead story at 9 a.m. was about the Mega Millions Lottery and who might win it. This was followed by advice on how to program your TiVo with your cell phone (hello?), and whether to take an aspirin a day or not. I never thought I'd say anything longing about Ted Turner, but CNN had more integrity when it was his baby.