1115.org

In the last few years, roughly coinciding with their ill-fated merger with AOL, CNN has added a third rule to television journalism. The network that revolutionized the game with bureaus in every corner of the world decided to change course and follow the “If it bleeds it leads” maxim of the local evening news and the “all freeway chases all the time” mantra of Los Angeles TV news with one of their own: “If there’s a missing white female, we’re on the case. An on. And on. And on.” So we’ve been subject to Chandra Levy, Elizabeth Smart, Laci Peterson, Lori Hacking, Jennifer Wilbanks and other stories or missing women that by any real measure just aren’t news.

Thousands of people go missing every year, and most of them don’t even get their names in the newspaper. Yet CNN continually applies the full court press whenever a young pretty white woman disappears under strange circumstances. Regularly scheduled programming is pushed aside, commercial breaks are moved if not cancelled altogether, and anchors adopt a foxhole like tone as they repeat that there is no new information to report. Analysts are Life Flighted to studios to provide background on the local sheriff, successful rescue statistics, and draw up a list of suspects absent any direct knowledge whatsoever. In short, a three ring circus at CNN Center in Atlanta.

Wall-to-wall coverage does tend to crowd out advertising (and therefor revenue), but CNN acts as if the lost income is less problematic than the possibility that a lone viewer in Des Moines, Iowa might change the channel unless the camera remains on an empty podium awaiting another update from the Tulsa, Oklahoma police department spokesperson. But CNN likes playing at news so much that they often relax their “missing white woman” requirement. Not so relaxed to include, say, black women, but sharks, deathwatches, and quite often, celebrity trials make the cut.

So it was with keen interest and deep skepticism that I read these quotes from CNN President Jon Klein claiming that they were wrong to cover the Michael Jackson trial so heavily:

CNN has given too much play to Michael Jackson’s 31/2-month child-molestation trial, says its president.

“If I had one decision to take back, it would be the extent of our coverage,” says CNN/U.S. chief Jon Klein, six months on the job. “Looking back, we should have just covered the beginning and the end.”
[…]
“We committed to a reporter and crew there every single day,” Klein says. “I have not found it to be a very satisfying meal. CNN ought to do stories nobody else has. We did what everybody else did. It was the safe thing to do.”

In terms of news value, the case “wasn’t even close to being the biggest priority,” Klein says. In the future, “we will be a lot more careful about committing to ongoing coverage.”

I’ve seen this movie before, it’s called Groundhog Day, and if I wanted to watch people continue to make the same mistake day after day and year after year, I’d cover the Democratic party. Oh, wait…