Diana McGinness originally published the following at Politics Unspun.
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CNN doesn’t need a shake up in their leadership, they need a shake up in their programming.
I’m tired of all the partisan hacks — including John King and Wolf Blizter. About the only show CNN has that’s worth watching is GPS. State of the Union is better with Candy than John King, but it’s just another forum for the political hacks to spread more BS.
Here’s some free advice CNN.
How about educating the public on the facts contained in the bills and the consequences of them by the non-partisan wonks who can report facts not lies and spin. Instead of having the politicos smearing them with their ideological spin, how about interviewing those who study the bills for their impact from, say, the Congressional Research Service — you know those really smart folks who write up the reports that apparently many members of Congress don’t bother to read? Or someone from the Government Accountability Office, or some non-partisan think tanks that actually understand the impact a bill will have?
Let’s go behind the scenes and expose the back room deals and fund-raising meet-ups with the lobbyists! Let’s raise some questions about the abuse of power, whether it be by Democrats or Republicans.
If we want D.C. to be cleaned up, then we need the media to get out of bed with the political class and start doing some real reporting. Who cares what the pols have to say — when it’s spin, CYA, or out and out lies? I’m tired of it — I love Rachel cause she goes after all of them with real facts and she takes on Democrats and Republicans. She’d spend more time on the Democrats, if the GOP didn’t give her so much fodder.
If you want me to tune back in, ditch the pundits, commentators, politicos and start dishing out the truth and nothing but the unvarnished truth. We’ll never straighten out the mess we’re in, until we can agree on the facts and demand solutions.
Example — instead of all the spin about the health care bill, they should have brought in people who study the problems. There was a great white paper The Cost Of Lack Of Health Insurance by the College of American Physicians and by Atul Gawande who wrote The Cost Conundrum in the New Yorker. No one ever asked them a single question to explain the problems and discuss solutions.
The media is pathetic. Cronkite would cry. And to my shortened post on this over at HuffPo, one response was “Murrow would puke.”
The American public is craving honesty in D.C. — how about setting a new trend CNN?
Interested in how you can unspin the right’s political spin? Read Diana McGinness’ Unspun Zone.
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Diana, you are spot on! I have been wondering if my degree in Broadcast Journalism would be welcome in our current world or if they would be afraid of someone trained to verify every fact with at least 3 sources! I was trained to report, not conjecture! I don’t hold out much hope for CNN to get better. I think they do need a shake-up in leadership in order for the programming to change and for editorial and news reporting policy to change. It all begins with leadership and decision making! Thanks for a great article!
Amen here, and it you are not into Amen… “DEAD-ON”…… I previously sited a couple of examples of complete weak and partisan reporting from Costello (early morning), O’Brien snippy warnings about talking points to Wassermann-Schultz with immediately allowing of talking opposition from a GOP pundit, and a few other examples of serious partisanship. Their ratings suffer a 50% viewer lose of audience during a recent review period. I am not surprised and curious to see how they will clean things up.
John King is a complete ideologue. I have not yet read all above, but if CNN does not dispense of Dan Loesch, they make a huge mistake. See, the have ho counter-balance progressive that works like her insane Right-wing bashing.
While they claim the middle, they do not recognize that their middle leans demonstrably Right.
Excellent graphic!
CNN has nothing to lose at this point. They should heed Dianne’s words and get off the political pundit crack pipe. It’s not like it’s doing anything for their ratings anyway. Embrace change and thrive, or stagnate and become irrelevant. They’re much closer to the later at this point.
You are so right, Diana — I fear we will never see the likes of a Cronkite or Murrow again. As Jack Webb of Dragnet used to say “just the facts” — that’s what we need. We don’t need all the sensationalism, and we can form our own opinions without the spin. That is exactly why I pulled the plug myself on CNN a couple of years ago, and I’m so much the happier for it!! Great post!
I pulled the plug on CNN about 2 years ago…Now I get a lot of my info from MSNBC and CurrenTV…
NOT because they are more “liberal”…but because I believe they work harder to get to the truth…even if
they miss it from time to time…
Over the last few years, but particularly more recently, I have realized that REAL journalism is dead in this country. You are so right about CNN and the other so called news shows. They have long departed the realm of actual journalism. Ass Erin Burnett to your list of partisan talking heads at CNN. I just don’t understand how anyone who cares about real reporting can ignore the advice of the author. Quit bringing in the political hacks to discuss what is going on, bring in people who can explain, without partisan slant, what an issue involves, its effects and costs, and actually inform people rather than provide their own special spin/lies.
Just got checked in at the hotel in Chicago. Wow, everyone! Thank you all for your wonderful comments. Off to crash and burn. Up at 3:00 am to catch the shuttle. Sigh…very, very long day!
And i agree – love the graphic, Mario!
Ted Turner must have been lyin’ like a rug, or at the very least disingenuous when he said with a straight face ‘for the most part’ when queried by Piers Morgan as to whether or not he likes what he sees on SeeEnEn theze dayz.
Damn! Diana, from your lips to God’s ears!
Wow. Right on, Diana! With two thumbs up!