This…is CNN?

August 21, 2006

It’s not there right now, but this attention-getting graphic was featured prominently on CNN’s website all weekend (via Aravosis). I noted the other day that the “fear-mongering” label may be overused in a political context, but when it comes to playing on viewers fears, CNN’s recent coverage of a possible terrorist threat clearly qualifies.
cnnterror
Indeed, notice the text. You could be living next door to a blood-thirsty terrorist right now! It doesn’t matter what those nice folks down the street look like; they may be plotting an imminent attack! What can you do about this crisis-in-the-making? You can watch CNN!

Please. As Aravosis put it, “Enough already. Now you are simply stoking people’s fears to gain audience share. That isn’t journalism…. It’s also simply helping the Republicans in their already-declared electoral strategy to, yet again, create fear to help them win the fall elections. And you know that. So why are you doing it?”

Of course, this “Terror 2.0” ad from the weekend was not just some random special report CNN put together. The network is doing a whole series of reports called, “Security Watch: Target: USA.”

You don’t suppose CNN is trying to exploit the moment of heightened anxiety for some kind of ratings boost, do you?

The Daily Show certainly makes a compelling case.

But…but…CNN is the Leftist news station!

  • But…but…CNN is the Leftist news station!

    Yeah, I’m sure JC Watts, Bill Bennett, and Glenn Beck — CNN’s most recent hires — will tell us all about how liberal they are.

  • The next generation of terrorists could be right next door and look just like you.

    Color me shocked! First, I find out I have a long lost, identical twin brother. Then, I find out he’s living right next door to me. And to top it all off, he’s a terrorist!

  • Actually, CNN is right.

    They are white supremists militia looney fanatics who want to blow up Federal buildings to revenge the storming of the Waco compound.

    Oh, right. Been there, done that.

  • Wow. So CNN is trying to tell me that the elderly Amish couple across the road—are really terrorists. I suppose the odor from the horse barn could “really” be a bio-weapon. Same thing with the “non-DuPont corn” growing in their garden. The chickens that wander across the meadow really aren’t freerange—they’re actually tiny little suicide bombers. They manufacture their own oval-shaped IEDs (I always thought they were called “eggs”), and leave them laying strewn about waiting to blow up the unsuspecting rabbit or groundhog.

    Talk about your “duck-n-cover” mentality!

    Oh. Umm…er…wait…maybe that’s it—those “Amish” have ducks, too…and they sell quilts….

  • I have another beef with CNN. Whoever writes their polls suck. I don’t expect them to be perfect but way too often the wording of the question or the choices are so poorly written that if you choose to participate than you are focred into a choice that you actually disagree with. Those polls are pretty much why I rarely go to the CNN web site.

    Their current poll is who would you vote for and the choices are Clinton or McCain. Please.

  • Ratings boost? It was crap like this which, well over a decade ago, turned me from a two-and-half hours of TeeVee news junkie to zero-hours a day. Maybe I’m succumbing to the romanticism of geezerhood, but Murrow, Huntley, Brinkley, and Cronkite didn’t need to rely on good looks or gimmicks; they offered and delivered hard-won news and analysis. And, for some reason, people were better informed and more socially/politically concerned forty years ago. Compare the time and column inches devoted to JonBenet with that expended on Judge Anna Diggs Taylor’s decision.

    So-called “market research” aside, I don’t think it’s the American people who “need” or “enjoy” such titillation, either. It’s corporate clowns — Wolf Blitzers, Katie Courics and all the other entertainers, and those who pull their strings — who are to blame. In their arrogance they really believe that they know best, that the nation wants to be entertained (which for some reason means “scared”) rather than informed.

    Well, screw ’em. They’re dinosaurs; at the moment, the bloggers are the tiny mammals scooting around their big, stupid carcasses — i.e., we are the future. I’m not fond of applying principles from physics to the social world, but this is a good example of the Second Law in Thermodynamics: “The entropy of an isolated system not at equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value.” That is, structure gives way to randomness over time. TeeVee news used to come from very few highly structured processes. Now it can flow from anyone with computer familiarity and something to express. I wonder if TeeVee knows it’s digging its own grave?

  • Lance,
    You mean, the Republican National Committee?

    You would think someone from CNN watches the Daily Show and thinks “Wow, do we REALLY look that stupid?”

  • cnn equals corporate or controlled or ‘christian’ national news .. they simply are another arm of the rnc just like fox and msnbc are … there whole agenda is to stoke fear per the orders of their fuhrer so as to keep this hemmorid propped up. why are all their ‘reporters’ and ‘news readers’ repiglicans ? why did they hire the shitstain called glen beck ? or jc watts .. or the ultimate puke bennett ? why ? the agenda ? at last sighting the entire cnn crew including wolf ‘i am not a nazi’ blizter, glen ‘ my asshole is not my mouth’ beck, kira .. i love my whitehouse gangbangs .. and all the rest of them were seen goosestepping around cnn headquarters murmuring in low, hypnotic, tones ‘my fuher, my fuhrer’ …. yep, censored national news is what cnn is …. all for the nazi cause …

  • “You would think someone from CNN watches the Daily Show and thinks ‘Wow, do we REALLY look that stupid?'” – 2Manchu

    Did you see the couple day skit between John Stewart and Stephan Colbert about the comments/criticism Herraldo (sp?) spouted on O’Liely’s show complaining about the Daily Show? I think all the MSM thinks of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report that way. They just don’t want to say it.

    I really enjoyed Colbert ripping the morning shows for scoffing at his “Better Know a District” interviews. He really skewered them.

  • I can’t imagine anyone planning a “must-see TV” night around this… maybe if it was about JonBenet Ramsey or another decade old murder case involving a blonde…

  • Hey, I thought only the Shadow knows what evil lurks in the minds of men?

    CNN’s terrawrist cheklist:
    1) Foreign looking
    2) Funny Looking
    3) Crazy eyes
    4) Foreign Looking
    5) Foreigner with Crazy Eyes
    6) Wears Funny clothes
    7) Did we mention Foreign looking?

  • You don’t suppose CNN is trying to exploit the moment of heightened anxiety for some kind of ratings boost, do you?

    CNN is ultimately owned by shareholders of Time Warner.

    The directors of Time Warner have a fiduciary responsibility to increase the value of Time Warner stock.

    If CNN didn’t suck, or if they didn’t cheerlead for Junta Boy and the Pillagers, they’d be looking at a lawsuit.

    CNN is legally obligated to suck.

    And the same thing is happening to newspapers.

    Ain’t capitalism grand?

  • “CNN is legally obligated to suck.” – DXM

    The reason I oppose all corporate ownership of any form of Media.

  • Actually, Lance is not at all wrong about saying it’s white supremacists and militia types who could be the next terrorists. In fact, I will tell you that the likelihood is they could ally with Al Qaeda.

    I have been doing research for a screenplay, using information given me by a former FBI counter-terrorism agent whose areaof expertise was the native bubbas, who left the Bureau when they refused to listen to him regarding this kind of potential alliance. It comes down to anti-Semitism, and the desire of these people to create enough domestic instability to lead to a race war, which they are certain they would win.

    So consider: Pakistani nuke is “liberated” by radical Islamic elements in the Paki military and turned over to Al Qaeda in the Tribal Areas, travels by camel caravan to Sinjiang province in China, where it is put on an 18-wheeler in a cargo container and sent to Shanghai, where it is shipped to Long Beach harbor (busiest container port on the US west coast), where the container sits one among thousands (unchecked, thanks to Bush and his Department of Homeland Insecurity), and the controls are in the hands of the White Aryan Youth (Metzger’s group here in southern California). They speak American English like natives, have their hair grown out, wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants to cover the tattoos. With that camouflage, who is going to racially-profile them? And then…

    Of course, this sort of real potential threat isn’t what the morons at CNN were talking about, they’re busy fomenting their own race war against the hard-working Muslim family whocame here to get away from the Islamic fundamentalism that wrecked their home country, who live down the street.

    So how is it the Communist News Network (in the words of the righties) went to the Corporate-shill News Network??? I read recently where Ted TTurner’s major regret is having sold CNN to Time-Warner.

  • Lance,

    That skit was great. Rivera is a clown.

    I thought his ribbing of Lee Terry (R-NE) and Omaha was rather funny.

  • I cancelled my cable this past month because I was tired of paying for crap like CNN and Fox. There were actually days where I thought Fox was more credible than CNN. In the race to the bottom of the infotainment barrel, CNN took a major dose of steroids to surpass its right-wing bretheren. Why is it that every CNN anchor has to have an agenda and try to show that their viewpoint is right despite what is going on in the world? If it weren’t for Jack Cafferty, CNN would be completely unwatchable. No wonder Jon Stewart is becoming “the most trusted name in news.”

  • “Actually, Lance is not at all wrong …” – Tom Cleaver

    Well, of course I’m not 😉

    Tom gets one path to an unnatural alliance of American Extremists with Al Qaeda. The other is this. Boy George II sends Theocratic Reactionaries to international conferences on things like population control, family and women’s rights and so on. They naturally don’t want to caucus with secular socialist scum from Europe, so they caucus with Saudis and Sudanese and other such types. When and the end of the day they are done bashing Western culture, what do you think these ‘types’ do? They have dinner together and plot the demise of Western democracy!

    I’ll take writing credit if you use that in your screen play 😉

  • replace “terrorist” with “counterrevoulutionaries” and CNN with “red guards” The resemblance is uncanny.

    No nation can stand when it looks for enemies within.

  • I’ll add one more to the mix: Corrupted News Network. I stopped watching CNN about two years ago. They are incapable of producing news let alone quality news. It is not even worthwhile to tune them in for a “breaking” national news story; sadly, Fox is more likely to have timely coverage of such events than CNN. It is all tabloid TV, but the “personalities” act as though they actually expect someone to take them seriously. They are so bad, I’m puzzled as to how they can not be aware of how much they suck. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “money for nothin’.”

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