I’m writing this exclusively about CNN because I don’t frequent Fox News, MSNBC, or other MSM outlets frequently enough to notice any trends beyond Krystal Ball really liking Bernie Sanders. And yes, that does mean that I get news from CNN. I certainly don’t get my news from CNN exclusively, but on a too-frequent basis I will check out what’s going on at the CNN website.
It’s mostly habit carried over from when CNN used to be a much better network. And if you think it’s always been this bad, you are wrong. It’s always been biased, but the most stark change in the last few years is their aversion to professionalism. A professional journalist, even with all their biases in full view of the audience, is still of some value. CNN has pushed out the professionals to make room for clickbait and hacks — confirming Jon Stewart’s assessment that the true bias of the 24/7 news media is sensationalism, conflict, and laziness.
That’s been the case for a while, probably more than two decades. Lately though, things have taken yet another turn for the worse.
I’m not sure when it began, but over the last year I’ve noticed a very common type of story that will appear at the top of CNN.com: “Watch one of our personalities react.”
Here is an example from this morning, following the first debate between Trump and Biden:
And just to ensure that all the CNN media personalities get their fair share of clicks and screen time, CNN updated the site just hours later:
I’d give more examples, but the Wayback Machine and CNN.com don’t really cooperate all that well. From the last few days though, we’ve had “CNN’s Brianna Keilar responds to McEnany attack,” “‘Where’s the plan?’: Brianna Keilar grills Trump official,” and “CNN reporter: I have never seen anything like this.” The last of those was about the CDC reversing position and removing language about airborne transmission from its Covid-19 guidance. But the important thing, the headline-worthy-thing, was that Elizabeth Cohen saw something she’d never seen before.
This is CNN manufacturing the news.
Press conferences belong on the news. Interviews belong on the news. Post-debate analysis is a reasonable thing to include. So are opinion pieces. The problem here is that the story is no longer the substance of the press conference, or the substance of the interview, or the substance of the analysis. The stories have become about the media personalities themselves.
These stories are without fail nothing more than video clips. The emotional exchanges and shocking reactions aren’t contextualized as a small part of a larger story. They are the entirety of the story. Nor are they occurrences so rare that the moment could be considered truly newsworthy — CNN runs several of these stories every week.
The network has created a strong incentive for its personalities to inject sensationalism and conflict into their jobs. Don’t just ask the press secretary a question, but phrase it aggressively and provoke an angry response that we can interview you about later on our own network. Don’t just give your honest assessment of a candidate’s debate performance, but put your emotions front and center because the audience likes it when we report on your personal drama, not the news of the day. The news is boring, but you are exciting, and the more exciting you are the better the ratings and more money the network and the brand-name personalities can rake in.
CNN has degraded itself to the level of gamer live streams where fans tune in not because the gameplay is all that interesting, but “because of the personalities.” Folks are no longer tuning in to CNN for the news and analysis, but because they’re fans of Van Jones or Anderson Cooper — not fans of their insights or news style, but fans of their personalities.
It’s Pewdiepie for grownups.
If CNN wanted to run a story on Pewdiepie getting upset about something, that’d be fine. Maybe trite, but fine, and at least within the bounds of traditional journalism ethics. But, when CNN’s personalities have emotional reactions for the purpose of getting to run a “Watch this emotional reaction” story, that’s manufacturing the news.