So the news today is that CNN has been losing viewers as Fox has gained viewers. I believe it is easy to attribute Fox’s increase in viewership to ideological opposition to the White House, but I don’t think this is the reason for CNN’s viewership drop. When you have Ted Turner saying that his brainchild needs “less fluffy news and more international news,” I think there is something wrong.
CNN is on in the cafeteria at my school so I only encounter it for a few minutes every day. Here are two tag-lines that I’ve seen in the last two days that I feel are indicative of CNN’s current state:
Recently, the conservative media has gone after a mid-level political appointee and a social services non-profit. Both victories have been trumpeted by conservatives as a sign that the new administration is corrupt and that the more liberal news organizations are out of touch with reality. Glenn Greenwald attempts to put the ACORN stings into context of how much the organization has cost the government compared to other companies. Maybe the liberal media has the right idea in their little coverage?
Absolutely not. That doesn’t stop a blogger from Psychology Today from concluding that it would have been impossible for a reporter to catch Wilson with his mouth open.
The conservatives blogs are angry about the damn liberals besmirching the name of Fox News host Glenn Beck. Right Wing News event went so far as reforging the forged police report accusing Beck of heinous crimes (not to be named explicitly by me but to be linked from this site) so that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton’s names would appear.
This is, of course, not the most mature way to handle the situation, but as a reader of Talking Points Memo noted:
We howled with laughter at teabaggers after the stimulus only to have them brandish guns and become players at townhalls. We rolled our eyes at Palin’s Death Panels, only to have month long national discussion over whether Obama wants to kill grandma and now veterans. Now we’re going to discuss whether it’s “appropriate” for the President to speak to schoolchildren? Really?
Enough is enough. Images of Obama as Hitler are now commonplace and, seemingly, unremarkable. It has become customary and usual for senior GOP officials to make outrageous, disparaging ad hominem remarks about the President. The crazy is becoming mainstream. Obama is in a real, tangible way now being delegitimized as a person and a leader.
Update 2: Welcome Other McCain readers! To clarify, I don’t support this kind of satire from either side of the spectrum but this was more of a pissed off Internetstunt than a left wing conspiracy. These people are like the Internet equivalent of your annoying little brother–just looking for a rise out of you.
One week after it came to light that the military was creating background reports on embedded journalists, the military has announced that they are ending the contract. From ThinkProgress.
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Chris Barna is a college student currently enrolled at Santa Clara University majoring in political science and minoring in mathematics. Contact me...
