Randy Shaw: "Why CNN Fails"

[alp227]

Last week, the New York Times reported that CNN “continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year.” CNN executives insisted “they will not change their approach to prime-time programs, which are led by hosts not aligned with any partisan point of view.”

But CNN’s chief problem is not a lack of partisanship. Instead, it is that CNN’s “news” primarily consists of opinions from partisan political hacks. Most work for CNN because no candidate wants to hire them, and it’s an easy gig because they don’t have to know much about the subjects they pontificate about. Does CNN really believe viewers are still interested in the opinions of the corporate-funded James Carville? Or that CNN will steal viewers from FOX News by hiring Erick Erickson of Redstate.com, who publicly threatened to shoot census workers? CNN is failing because it’s selling stale conventional wisdom, which viewers are rejecting.

CNN’s strategy of delivering news via the opinions of self-defined political “consultants” continues to turn off viewers. But CNN wrongly believes that the network is insufficiently partisan, which contributes to its refusal to change course.

Read more: http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=7984

This is a VERY interesting OP that covers these following points why CNN is falling down lately: the pundits, loss of Latino viewers because of Lou Dobbs, reliability, and competition from Fox News and MSNBC.

[crim son]

1. Funny.

My teenage son called me over to the computer to show me something on CNN. He was ranting about what a bullshit news source it was, without any prior input from me. Hey, if a sixteen-year-old kids can see that it's shit, it must really be shit.

[tsuki]

2. I've started referring to it as Tiger Woods Network, and everyone knows

which cable channel that I am referring to. This morning I got up and husband was watching...Tiger Woods report. I came home at noon, and Tiger Woods report. The government goes into MI, OH & IN for RW extremists, Tiger Woods report. Miners die, Tiger Woods report. A celebrity obsessed network with faux celebrity news readers. And as for Jiggles in the Morning, somebody snatch that cocktail napkin she stuff in her cleavage and tell her to buy some adult clothing.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Last summer it was the Michael Jackson Network

Oh, they know what they're doing--they're helping dumb down the American people.

[samsingh]

3. he has an excellent point - i hope cnn listens

but they won't

[DAMANgoldberg]

5. David Schuster could be available...

I can see this happening at CNN.

6-9A American Morning (John Roberts & Kyra Phillips)
9-11A Kerian Chetry until contract runs out
11-1P Tony Harris/Don Lemon
1-3P Ali Velshi/Christine Romans
3-5P David Schuster
5-7P The Situation Room (Wolf Blitzer)
7-8P John King USA (w/Dana Bash)
8-9P Rick's List (Rick Sanchez)
9-10P Larry King Live
10-11P Anderson Cooper 360
11-6A Various repeats

Say Bye Bye to Campbell Brown and put 1 married couple and 1 near-married couple on together.

[Ganja Ninja]

6. CNN's problem is that they listened to the criticism from the right that all media is liberal.

So now everything is parsed by anywhere from 2 to 7 pundits all talking over each other and none making a point.

I have a suggestion for CNN. How about hiring real journalists and covering real news and world events? Cut back on politics and stop worrying about whether a story is bias and just present facts as they are, straight up, dry and professional. No spin. No witty banter between the talking heads. No idiots repeating FOX talking points. And last but not least, use real camera crews whenever possible and stop with the cell phone videos.

[Doctor_J]

7. Yes, they should try to emulate BBC instead of Faux "News"

But the people who run the network, and those on camera, are all rich Repukes, so I don't see it chagning much

[blue97keet]

8. The only talking head that used to blast the corporatist

free trade ,U.S. Chamber of Commerce cheap labor establishment was Lou Dobbs. Then he got off on some kind of stupid irrelevant Fox News guns and acorns and squirrels kick. The networks have a squirrelly notion of what we are supposed to care about in an economic meltdown, offshoring of everything and stagnant wages.