From:
https://tinyurl.com/yv9rs72b
===
You Heard it Here First: The Old CNN Is Dead
By Ed Sherdlu
As a broadcast journalist, my goal was always to get my accurate story on
the air first. Beating the other networks by even just a minute was a
major victory when covering breaking news. It drove ratings and ratings
are everything. So, let me give you an advantage in your political
discussion group. Here is the headline for January 1, 2022: The old CNN is
dead!
The cause of death is not the forced departure of Chris Cuomo or Rachel
Maddow's act becoming so old she is moving to a weekly show. Nor is it
that CNN's jaundiced journalists conspired to be completely wrong about
Kyle Rittenhouse, the false Russia collusion claim, Hunter Biden's laptop,
Jessie Smollett, Border Patrol whippings, and countless other "important"
news stories. The reason is good old-fashioned free-market economics
combined with Americans' limited tolerance of CNN's ultra-liberal BS
(Bovine Secretions).
Two decades ago, CNN was the news juggernaut. But since then, its
viewership dropped faster than Joe Biden's approval ratings. Media mogul
John Malone just bought the sinking news ship in a fire sale and he will
waste no time in cutting out the cancerous cause for CNN's liberal-laced
decline.
To understand why Malone must drastically reshape CNN, you must understand
who really decides what you watch on a news program. When watching CNN,
MSNBC, or the three major entertainment networks, it is easy to blame the
news anchor for the seriously slanted left-leaning coverage.
Today's talking heads, though, are not the main cause of the problem. They
just blindly read whatever the show producers dump into their
teleprompters. In their carefully clipped, dulcet tones, complete with
properly concerned expressions, they read the words written by far-left
young men and women who think the world revolves around them and their
favorite Manhattan pan-Mongolian vegetarian restaurant.
There was a time when it was different. Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw and,
particularly, Peter Jennings were real journalists. First and foremost,
they were reporters. They understood their job was to observe what was
happening, condense it into a minute-and-a-half of easily understandable
facts, and then report those facts to their viewers.
Walter Cronkite was a self-admitted liberal, but he worked very hard to
report the news with no discernible political slant. He frequently told
friends that if he received an equal amount of hate mail from people on
both sides of an issue, he knew he had gotten it about right.
Although the slogan, "We Report, You Decide" is now a trademark only at
Fox News, it was once the watchword of all news broadcasts in the days
when news anchors were called "The Evening Stars."
Jennings's passing was the death knell of reality-based reporting. The
young, oh-so-hip graduates of the oh-so-expensive journalism schools
decided the real purpose of the evening news was to promote their
left-wing political beliefs. When the networks started promoting anchors
with no real reporting experience, simply because they were "perky," it
was the last gasp of real broadcast journalism in the Mainstream Media.
Facts were no longer important. It was all about emotion. The tear-filled
tight shot filling TV screens became critically important. So-called
"video journalists" were encouraged to push their cameras as close as
possible into the faces of relatives gathering at the airport expecting to
meet an airplane that had just crashed. If the news that her husband just
died in the remains of a flaming airplane was not enough to create the
emotion the editors wanted, some stranger pushing his camera within two
feet of the weeping widow was certain to unleash a torrent of tears.
The idiocy grew. Fifty years ago, we all pitied the Village Idiot. Twenty
years ago, he was featured as the "colorful character" in news reports.
Now he has his own weekly show on MSNBC.
And of course, television loved to cover any aspiring left-wing politician
who could give the perfect eight-second soundbite. After all, these
politicians promised to end all the viewers' pain, feed the hungry,
eradicate hurricanes, pay off your mortgage and cure most dread diseases,
if only the voters would put them into office. Republicans were stuck with
the increasingly rare concept called "reality."
Television network and cable news drifted, or should I say galloped,
further into foolishness every year as bosses hired more empty-headed
reporters. My real-world favorites include the New York City news anchor
who, in gushing her adoration of Pope John Paul II, asked her co-anchor if
the Pope ever had any children. The same lady stood on the green-painted
Fifth Avenue and told her live shot viewers that St. Patrick's Day was not
just a celebration there in Manhattan, but in fact, it was a day of joy
for German people everywhere!
When covering political news, young journalists saw themselves advancing
their professors' views of a one-world utopia. They believed it was their
solemn duty to tell the rest of us what to think.
But then three elements began to use their megaphones to tell Americans
about the other side of the news. Rush Limbaugh, FOX News, and Donald
Trump gave new voice to reality. Viewers repeatedly told the all-important
ratings services, "I hated Limbaugh/ FOX/Trump, until one day I
accidentally listened to them. I was hooked from that day forward. They
speak for me."
It's the results of those rating services that really drive what viewers
watch. Please understand that truth or public benefit are not the purposes
of broadcast news. Broadcast news has but one goal. The only objective is
to make money for the people who own the television stations. Ratings are
everything. Nothing else counts. Period.
So as viewers began to resist the leftist brainwashing, the MSM,
especially CNN, had a disastrous decline in ethics and ratings. The people
who really control things in TV, "The Suits" (the bean counters' bosses)
did not like the results. Again, remember the real purpose of TV news: TV
ratings equate with profits on a one-to-one basis. The more viewers, the
more profit.
It took time, but when CNN's number of viewers dropped below the number of
people listening to taxicab dispatchers in Hoboken, CNN's owners knew it
was time to cut their losses. They were lucky to unload that turkey around
Thanksgiving. Had the sale closed after CNN lost its number one star,
Cuomo, the price would have dropped into the dime-on-a-dollar range.
New owner John Malone is not a rock-solid conservative, but his political
beliefs will not be what drives the new CNN. Malone is a proven
broadcasting businessman. He knows that, to improve ratings and thereby
protect and expand his investment, he must convert the liberal crybaby
Cable News Network back to a source of actual news. When questioned about
his plans for CNN, Malone confirmed the network needed to get back to
actual news reporting, as opposed to broadcasting biased opinions. That
was the writing on the wall or, in today's electronic age, on the
teleprompter.
Do not expect a radical change overnight. But, if Malone keeps his
promise, the new direction of CNN will be firmly carved into the tombstone
of the old. The Suits at ABC, CBS, and NBC are well advised to watch
closely.
--
Ed Sherdlu is the pen name of a former CBS television network
reporter. He uses a pen name because his mother would be so embarrassed
to know that Ed's 12-Step Journalism Recovery Program had been a failure. ===
-- Sean
... Work smarder and not harder and be careful of yor speling.
___ MultiMail/FreeBSD v0.52
--- Maximus/2 3.01
* Origin: Outpost BBS // bbs.outpostbbs.net:10123 (618:618/10)