Cable news is dead to me.
I remember when Cable News Network (CNN) started in 1980. It was the first cable news channel to broadcast news 24 hours per day, and in the 1980s you could simply sit down in front of the tube on your own schedule and pickup on what is happening around the world. It was phenomenal. I remember watching the news feeds on the day President Reagan was shot. That event justified the creation of CNN.
Ted Turner did something right, but then he did something wrong. He created his own competition called CNN2. The second cable channel ran news cycles more quickly so that you could hear the world in 20 minutes or so and CNN began running longer news cycles with specials. Still, not much signifcantly changed until MSNBC showed up and then truly the competition began. At that point, there were three cable news channels all vying for our attention and advertising dollars. The purpose of cable news was no longer spreading news, but selling news stories. Then FOX News Channel showed up and provided a full carnival of psuedo-news fun. Ted was originally an advertising man, but even he was being topped by Rupert Murdoch.
From 1996 onward, the cable news networks, even in compteition, continued to provide us with breaking news and special reports. The pinnacle of 24/7/365 news coverage occurred on September 11, 2001 when no other form of communication could speak as loudly or as quickly as cable television. Afteward, the cable news networks definitely jumped the shark – their overbloated, self-importance in believing that they were providing “late breaking news” stories – in which Angelina Jolie had an ingrown toenail removed or stole somebody’s husband — was in seeming oblivion to another growing medium of choice: the Internet.
This past week, during the protests in Iran, the cable networks provided little, if any, coverage on the issues. Was it a lack of interest? A lack of advertising dollars? Was it a lack of access? Certainly the dictators in Iran provided increasing restrictions or prohibitions on who could report news from the ground. Still, it’s not good to have a major world political event occur and, instead, you are covering a story about Senator John Ensign with his pants down. Another politician fucked someone other than his wife, and he put his paramour on the payroll. This is news? Who gives a shit? He was the flavor of the month.
This afternoon I finally tried CNN again and found some odd behaviors. First, Fredericka Whitfield seemed a bit out of it. She seemed confused about an Iranian state news agency report that a mausoleum was bombed. I had read about that news item hours earlier, and there was significant doubt in its truth — not only because there were no pictures of destruction but also because it was the Iranian state news service, which is inherently unreliable at this point. However, Ms Whitfield, certainly working as a news anchor rather than a reporter, seemed to stumble through the news story and treated it as though it were fact. Even one of the guests interviewed on the show expressed surprise at Ms Whitfield when she said that it was difficult to get photos from Iran. Really? The Iranian state news agency has difficulty disseminating its own photos to the rest of the world? Well, if that’s true then Ahmadinejad has bigger problems than people protesting in the streets.
Second, I witnessed that CNN reporters were standing next to a computer screen, pushing the internet news information available to anybody with internet access. Not only was I hearing “please understand these are unconfirmed reports” about 20 times per minute (very annoying), but I was being told of current events by journalists standing in front of a computer screen showing me what I had already read or witnessed hours earlier. I guess if you were a CNN viewer who either didn’t own a computer, didn’t have internet access or were simply too stupid to find the news online, you probably were quite satisfied with the performance of CNN this afternoon. It was a confirmational moment for me. Cable news is dead.
Who watches cable news nowadays? I don’t. Maybe it will be useful when my router is down? I think Wolf Blitzer self-caricatures in his situation room on a daily basis. Once a journalist, he is now a performance artist. The situation, really, is that many of us (most of us) get our news online. I can read it, hear it, see it or watch it — all online. I don’t have to wade through 42 minutes of crap while Wolf gives me teasers about some upcoming “late breaking news story” that really isn’t news and often broke somewhere else. The biggest thing breaking in the situation room is wind.
Worse, the complaints of many so-called journalists — that online bloggers and videographers do not report on news according to journalistic standards of accuracy and verification — is a joke. Many mainstream journalists have proven incapable or unwilling to do the same. Honestly, I can read blogs, watch videos and stream tweets and get actual news information with — get this — about the same error ratio as I do from mainstream journalists.
Additionally, Chris Pirillo makes an interesting assertion:
I don’t know that I’d say blogging is a new form of journalism, no. Blogging is certainly a newer type of writing style. Blogging and journalism aren’t exactly the same, but they achieve the same results.
Wow. It’s interesting to see that someone thinks that the results are the same. I’m not so sure about that, but let’s say that the results are close enough to the same, such that the difference in outcomes may be irrelevant.
While I continue to watch certain shows on cable television, often for both entertainment and information, I am here to say that cable news is dead to me.
UPDATE: I am not the only one complaining about CNN this weekend, nor referencing Whitfield directly. See Reason.com CNN Breaking News: A Bomb Didn’t Go Off in Tehran Yesteryday!
I was watching the news tonight right after having a peaceful dinner with my wife and daughter. Someone mentioned the youtube video of #neda, and I looked at my 3 year old girl trying to imagine if there would ever be a reason why I’d want to take her near a place where she could get shot.
The need for breaking news, live information, community, and to be part of something that could impact my future…. Its just sad that an innocent teen-age girl had to die trying to get those things.
I believe people are more engaged these days with regards to their news and media. The people in Iran are relying on Twitter for vital information that can save their lives. Things are changing, and the Internet is giving regular people a loud voice for the first time.
I don’t know much about politics or religion, but I do know that there are bloggers who are being hunted in a different part of the world for sharing their truth.
I built a breaking news site after I put the family to bed tonight. There are people dying right now to get the news, so I think the rest of us regular people should take on the responsibility of helping them get it.
I think that CNN initially underestimated the importance of the story. They were betting on the American people not giving a damn about anything happening outside their borders. The sad thing is that they normally would have been correct in this assumption. For me, the real lesson is that news networks need to focus more on the news and less on their ratings. Of course, this is easier said than done.