CNN

I am a news junky and I watch a lot of CNN (just ask my wife). I choose CNN instead of MSNBC and Fox because its coverage is light-years ahead of MSNBC and Fox is really a propaganda outlet run be conservative hacks. I do like CNN but I have several problems with the way every headlining story is played for maximum dramatic affect. Take the JonBenet thing, please… It was overplayed ten years ago and now that this Karr fellow has claimed responsibility and turned himself in, I guess the networks needs to cover that. But do you need a live shot of the man getting off of the plane with near minute by minute updates of his location, with the scary murderer soundtrack playing. So I offer up my observations as a CNN addict.

1. No story involving missing or dead, attractive, white women or girls can be overplayed. In this type of media circus, melodrama does not exist. These stories are driven by emotion rather than fact and logic. See Lacy Pederson, JonBenet, Elizabeth Smart, Nathalie Holloway, that runaway bride crazy, etc…

2. Coverage of politics should, if at all possible, avoid meaningful discussion of a particular policy and instead, focus on the horse-race aspect of the story. Most of the airtime devoted to the Medicare Prescription plans was directed at how this hurts the Democrats or helps the President rather than actually talking about what the policy would do. This is true of most TV news as well.

3. Bob Novak should have been fired a long time ago.

4. It takes an enormous lie or evasion for Wolf Blitzer to come after someone in an interview.

5. While Anderson Cooper was positively brilliant in his coverage of Katrina, he is not the second coming of Edward R. Murrow. Y’all need to dial back the fawning promotion a bit.

6. The network has absolutely cornered the market on hot Asian anchorwomen and reporters.

7. Coverage of the weather will always focus on the worst case scenario. If the only thing you knew about Hurricane Ernesto was the info you got from CNN this weekend, you would think that everyone from the Gulf Coast to New England was going to die. To boot, any storm with the potential to do any amount of damage will be labeled a “killer” storm. Scary is better than factual.

8. Like the weather, news on terrorism will be gear towards scaring the shit out of you. One will sit through any commercial if one thinks that the coming story can save their life from an imminent terror threat.

9. Lou Dobbs and Jack Cafferty are so much fun to watch. These guys are grumps that refuse to take anything from anyone. Cafferty, especially, loves to get up on the soapbox and lay into someone. It is a bit like an old man screaming at the kids to keep off his lawn. I love that stuff.