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Related: About this forumCNN’s “Crossfire” talk shows CNN still doesn’t get what’s wrong with CNN
Just in case you were hoping the new show would be smarter, CNN is talking to Newt Gingrich and Stephanie Cutter
BY ALEX PAREENE
CNN would like you to know that under Jeff Zuckers leadership, they will continue being as CNN-y as possible. Thats the message Im getting from the report that the struggling cable news channel is planning to relaunch political shouting program Crossfire and is in talks with Newt Gingrich and Stephanie Cutter. Gingrich! Finally, Lincoln-Douglas-style Crossfire.
This is at this point pretty thin. Talks doesnt mean much. Gingrich and Cutter might be part of a whole bench of hosts. But it does suggest that CNN is going about a Crossfire launch in just about the worst way possible. Those hoping for a smarter version of the old show will definitely be disappointed.
Stephanie Cutter has spent her entire career as a campaign flack. Her job has been, for years, to spin reporters. (This job leads to becoming a political newsmedia professional strangely often.) Regardless of her intelligence and her ability to speak extemporaneously on camera, she has never demonstrated an ability to be an interesting, independent thinker, and it is fair to predict that as a TV pundit shed be representing The Democratic Party and not liberalism.
Gingrich was a Republican politician as of a few months ago (and he still might be again someday). In Congress he was a would-be revolutionary right-winger who left office loathed by everyone on both sides of the aisle. In private life hes been allowed to pretend to be a lightweight conservative public intellectual. His specialty since leaving office has been making money, with a mess of consulting companies and nonprofits and educational businesses. (He lost much of that empire in 2012, when he somehow convinced himself he was a serious presidential candidate.) He fancies himself as an ideas man, because he wildly flits from TED-ish Big Idea to Big Idea, picking up and abandoning technocratic proposals for major problems more or less at random. But he is essentially a buffoon, and one respected as a public thinker or even public figure by approximately no one.
full article:
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/24/cnns_crossfire_talks_show_cnn_still_doesnt_get_whats_wrong_with_cnn/
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CNN’s “Crossfire” talk shows CNN still doesn’t get what’s wrong with CNN (Original Post)
DonViejo
Apr 2013
OP
EC
(12,287 posts)1. I hope Stephanie says no.
I'd hate to see her forever associated with Newt - her career to this point has been very good, this would really harm her. CNN and Newt = a twofer of badness.