I sat last night and tried to watch CNN. I admit....with the options of France-24, Sky News, the BBC, Deutsche Welle (in English) and the Japanese network.....at least I have a few other options beyond the German language networks.
CNN was covering the daily White House press conference, and this Kayleigh McEnany (the President's spokesperson) was handling the questions. At some point, she whirled around and started to ask why journalists could no longer do their job and investigate stories. Thirty seconds later....she had slides appear on various dynamics unfolding....asking the questions that reporters used to ask thirty years ago.
At that point....maybe 30 seconds into this lecture by McEnany, CNN cut the whole thing. Lickety split....as we'd say in Alabama. No explanation. Then five seconds later, they are in the midst of Corona-chatter with three or four guests....doing a live 'why won't the government admit its mistakes' or 'things are pretty f**ked-up chatter'.
Basically, CNN didn't want to have viewers (what few are left) to ask the question that McEnany had asked. Her point is valid. Journalism has slipped to such a degree, that you have people in their 30s and 40s.....who can't seem to do much real investigative work, or analytical research.
I used to think this was purely a network decision, but I've come to this point of wondering if a lot of these folks came out of the university setting in the past thirty years....not prepared for the profession or just geared to write/talk marginal stuff.
The amusing thing is that Germans sit and occasionally watch CNN to get another prospective beyond public TV (ZDF and ARD), and it's usually a choice of either the BBC or CNN.
So they sit there and watch the questions that McEnany laid out, and then kinda notice the 'quick-step' of CNN to dump this real quick. Then the German sits there....wondering why they didn't carry the rest of the press conference.
I'm not giving up on CNN, but it just makes me want to identify them as 12-year-old kids....attempting to produce marginal news.
Oh, and to note this....as abruptly as CNN halted the conference coverage....about sixty seconds into non-coverage....I hit the channel button and flipped to France-24.
1 comment:
"Basically, CNN didn't want to have viewers (what few are left) to ask the question that McEnany had asked. Her point is valid. Journalism has slipped to such a degree, that you have people in their 30s and 40s.....who can't seem to do much real investigative work, or analytical research."
I used to work as a Linotype operator, mostly at country weeklies, and remember hearing editors ream out a reporter for inserting opinions into their news articles.
Some years later (1980s) I read where a Journalism professor reported, with some horror, that in a poll of his class, almost 50% believed that a reporter's duty was to form public opinion rather than just report the news. His kind have been long gone.
IMO, it's the colleges who are at fault. I don't know of one who turns out old-style reporters, but you do occasionally see one pop up in the Media.
Must have flown below the radar.
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