CNN self destructed trying to make itself Fox-lite as if there was an unlimited number of viewers over age 65 where weren’t already locked into Fox. Then they hired Erik Erickson from RedState.com, because they decided the ideal fresh face of punditry was a flabby blogger who’d apparently never set foot outside of Georgia with a site that was often nearly deserted because it banned pretty much everyone. And before that they gave Glenn Beck a prime time show… And there was Tucker Carlson, who has since gone down the drain of partisan hackery.
It’s not that these were isolated instances - they just keep trying and trying to steer hard to the right. Social media? With Erickson they showed a basic lack of understanding of what the internet is. The Daily Show has already had a lot of fun with CNN’s continuing interest in the internet and the idea that people need television to tell them about the internet. On a number of occasions they have been called out for repeating bullshit conspiracy theories that bubble up on right wing conspiracy sites, although CNN is hardly alone in this. But it sure makes great tv when a reporter starts getting all confrontational with the White House about some story that got hyped on Powerline the last week before being completely debunked by the end of the day. It’s a great way to get incriminating “WTF?” looks from the spokesman, but CNN has to be prepared to take its lumps from comedians and the social media audience it’s trying to capture. Oh, and Fox News is already doing it.
Maybe things will improve, but their high tech sets have been craptacular.And why do I want the tv to look like an ipad except bigger and I can’t control it? And as Tom The Dancing Bug recently pointed out, Twitter is lousy way to get actual news. CNN has a giant wall of Twitter? Who cares? I can even watch the giant CNN twitter wall on my smartphone, so it’ll be all little again. Woot!
