This … is CNN

June 8, 2005

I don’t want to get my hopes up, because I’ve been disappointed before, but it sounds like CNN is aiming to become … a serious news network.

CNN announced a slate of programming and anchor changes Monday intended to refocus the No. 2 cable news network on hard news and analysis, and away from opinion and talk.

CNN chief Jon Klein, who took over in November, says the changes are not meant to directly counter Fox News Channel, which continues to trounce onetime ratings leader CNN, now marking its 25th year.

“There are many tactical things we could do to try to beat Fox, but we’re trying to be ourselves: Roll up our sleeves and report the news, don’t talk about it,” Klein says.

I haven’t seen any of the new programming, but just five months after Klein took Jon Stewart’s side after the comedian said Crossfire is “hurting America,” CNN seems to be moving in the right direction.

There will, for example, be a one-hour midday broadcast from CNN International called “Your World Today.” It is, believe it or not, the first time any cable news station has devoted a regular daytime block to international news. On Monday, the show even included a report from Sudan. I know, I couldn’t believe it either.

Maybe this is just the soft bigotry of low expectations, but I’m relatively surprised and cautiously optimistic. I don’t know if viewers are actually prepared to watch news with less shouting and fewer talking points, but I give CNN credit for giving it a shot.

Hmmmmph. Living in Germany, Your World Today is the standard broadcast. I hadn’t realized America had fallen so far behind. It should catch on in the States, and people might just like it (If they can stand actually learning anything). It is a really informative program, and pulls a lot of African and Asian stories which tend to fly way under our radar screens. I wonder if they will keep the British narrator?

  • When I was a kid, it was nice to have an explanation. I don’t need to hear “both sides” any more to make up my mind. Perhaps I’ve developed some critical thinking skills. I don’t watch “The News Hour” with Jim Lehrer because I get tired of seeing both sides spinning the same info a different way.

  • Could it be? A revival of journalists who tell us the what, when, who, where, how, and sometimes why?? Without simply regurgitating someone else’s previously reported lackluster investigative story? Actually checking their facts with a healthy sense of skeptcism? Anchormen and women who were picked on their credentials and not their close-up?? I’m getting verclept (sp?). Breathe, Force, Breathe. Don’t get all teased up just to be let down later….

  • Well, Your World Today takes a look off of the beaten path. They typically avoid the sensationalistic news. For example, they might look at the day in the life of an Iraqi family, and if car bombs were a part, they would come into play. Otherwise, they might just look at how the family survives. A very microcosmic vew, from which a lot can be extrapolated about countries as a whole.

  • Seems to me CNN did something like this a long time ago – 20 years or so? – maybe only on Sunday. I wouldn’t have seen TV during the weekday back then, so I don’t know if it was a daily thing or not. But I do remember it making CNN unique (for this country).

    One benefit of living as close to the Canadian border as I do (Bellingham WA), we get lots of Canadian media. Aside from excellent classical music (without ads and without begging), that includes a very healthy dose of international news from a global, rather than a parochial, viewpoint.

    Maddeningly, CBC have begun to imitate NPR’s “up close and personal” feel – unnecessary soundtracks of people slogging through mud or rowing a canoe or slapping tortillas while *discussing* (rather than reporting on) more abstract, structural issues like ecological matters or race relations. Still, they’re miles ahead of us in coverage.

  • It’s things like this that give us what few rays of hope come through on an average week: that courage and integrity have not been totally crushed from the American psyche and that the spirit of rebellion against tyranny that sparked the first American Revolution still lives amongst us.

    Ok, everybody cheer now. Yay!!

  • Color me skeptical, for two resons. First, I’ll believe that CNN has really committed to hard news again when it actually shows up consistently and it is done correctly. Second, the only reason that CNN may be moving in this direction is that their viewership numbers are tanking; it has NOTHING to do with any concept of journalistic integrity that may have invaded the corporate hierarchy. Come on folks, get real. Let’s remember that we live and function in the reality-based community! 🙂

  • AnaLib

    I agree that CNN has be thinking about their bottom line; after all, the news media isn’t designed to tell the news, it’s designed to sell cereal. But I also think that they are thinking about their place in the years ahead.

    When the tsunami hit, CNN was on the scene and got all the coverage, while Fox was exposed as Pundit TV, with no ability to get the story having concentrated entirely on Republican attack ads, I mean, commentary shows. America’s slowly finding its borders of awareness stretching its national borders due to greater communications technology and national concerns: business developments in India have an impact on the American economy, unrest in Russia will have ramifications here, China is on the rise; and CNN will be there when the big stories break.

    Perhaps I’ve just been reading too much about the early years of CBS (Bob Edwards’ bio of Murrow, Schieffer’s book on Meet the Press, both very good), but the parallels between that network’s efforts worldwide and what CNN plans to do now are unmistakeable. Of course, what’s interesting is that people are treating this as if covering world news exclusively is some kind of crazy novelty. That’s how provincial our attitudes have become.

  • ayn,

    Thanks for your reply, and I hope you’re right. Time will tell, and this is one where I would prefer to be wrong!!

  • Well, I’ll believe it when I see it. And see it actually continue for more than a few days.

    I had hopes for CNN after Jon Klein agreed with Jon Stewart’s assessment of Crossfire. But having watched their “flagship” NewsNight since then turn into the Terri Schivo-BTK-runaway bride-Jacko-missing-white-girl hour, with the only “news” a couple of cutaways to Headline News, I doubt it.

    Ted Turner was right — it’s become the “pervert of the day” network. They’ll have to come a LONG way to get my viewership back.

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