n July 23, CNN president Jon Klein acted like the head of a serious news network. On July 24, he acted like an intern for Lou Dobbs.
During the previous week, Dobbs had breathed new life -- and, as a CNN anchor, unprecedented legitimacy -- into a long-discredited conspiracy theory concerning the details of President Obama's birth. Other CNN hosts roundly debunked accusations that Obama wasn't born on U.S. soil. In fact, Kitty Pilgrim, who guest-hosted Lou Dobbs Tonight on July 17, used her time in his chair to do just that, stating, "CNN has fully investigated the issue, [and] found no basis for the questions about the president's birthplace." And yet Dobbs persisted. On July 20, he reported on the story again, summing it up this way: "A lot of questions remaining, and seemingly, the questions won't go away because they haven't been dealt with ... straightforwardly and quickly."
While Dobbs said that he personally believed Obama was a citizen, he had fueled the "birther" fringe by repeatedly complaining that Obama had yet to produce an original birth certificate listing a doctor and hospital.
Klein asked CNN researchers to look into the matter and passed along their findings to Dobbs' producers in a July 23 email that was soon leaked. Specifically, they found that the document had been discarded when the Hawaii Department of Health digitized its records.
"It seems to definitively answer the question," Klein wrote. "Since the show's mission is for Lou to be the explainer and enlightener, he should be sure to cite this during your segment tonite" [sic]. Klein continued: "And then it seems this story is dead -- because anyone who still is not convinced doesn't really have a legitimate beef."
Within 24 hours, he had reversed himself.
"Look, Lou's his own show," he told reporter and blogger Greg Sargent on July 24, the same day that Dobbs used his nationally syndicated radio program to ask, "Where is that birth certificate? Why hasn't it been forthcoming?" Klein wrote off Dobbs' critics -- not those pushing the conspiracy -- as biased partisans. "I understand that people with a partisan point of view from one extreme or another might get annoyed that certain subjects are aired." He reportedly claimed Dobbs' coverage amounted to "a few conversations with people representing a wide range of opinions." Klein also told Sargent that Dobbs was under no pressure to stop reporting the story. "I think no good journalist would ever say that a particular story will never be covered again. Every day brings new facts, new pegs."
The next day, he went a step further, telling the L.A. Times that Dobbs' broadcasts had been, simply put, "legitimate."
From "dead" to "legitimate" in less than 48 hours.
Klein owes CNN's viewers an explanation. Does he harbor any doubt that President Obama is a U.S.-born citizen? Assuming he doesn't -- and his July 23 email was pretty definitive on that score -- what about the story, and Dobbs' actions, could possibly be considered legitimate?
By saying one thing in private and another in public, Klein has blown a huge hole in CNN's credibility. CNN likes to characterize itself on air as "the most trusted name in news." But how can viewers trust anything from a network whose president deems "legitimate" the promotion of questions that even many conservatives have dismissed as lunacy, and their proponents "nutburgers"?
An April 27 New York Times article reported that Klein touted what he said was the network's commitment to high journalistic standards, differentiating it from its competitors. "We would do ourselves a disservice if we thought that our main competitors were the other so-called cable news networks," he said. "They don't have journalists on in prime time." He also expressed discomfort with Dobbs' highly opinionated style and implied that changes were under way. "If you watch Lou's show, he's doing more of a straight newscast than he's ever done before."
And, yet, notwithstanding Klein's dismissal of "the other so-called cable news networks," it was left to Phil Griffin, the president of MSNBC, to state the truth about the whole birther movement. "It's racist," said Griffin, according to The New York Times. "It's racist. Just call it for what it is."
Klein has a lot of questions to answer.
Eric Burns is President of Media Matters for America (www.mediamatters.org), a progressive media watchdog and research and information center based in Washington, D.C.
Showing posts with label CNN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CNN. Show all posts
CNN In Third Place In Prime Time For First Time
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In this undated image released by CNN, CNN anchor Campbell Brown is shown. (AP Photo/CNN)
CNN says its overall business is healthy and it is not straying from its straight news path. But it is suffering more audience erosion than its rivals since the peak days of the presidential election, further proof that the opinionated prime-time shows on Fox and MSNBC have greater audience loyalty.
CNN's weekday prime-time ratings are relatively flat compared to last year during the primary campaign, up 1 percent from March 2008, according to Nielsen Media Research. Fox's ratings have jumped 30 percent and MSNBC, the new No. 2, is up 24 percent. The biggest growth in cable news is for CNN's partner, HLN, formerly Headline News, which is up 62 percent.
Fox remains on a mountain above its two closest competitors, with its prime-time audience in March more than that of MSNBC and CNN combined. "The O'Reilly Factor" has done particularly well, keeping more of its postelection audience than anything else on CNN and MSNBC.
Through Wednesday, Fox was averaging 2.73 million prime-time viewers in March. MSNBC had 1.16 million and CNN had 1.14 million. The March ratings period ends Friday, and it's doubtful CNN will be able to overcome MSNBC.
"The fact that one network may have eked out a slight edge in one small slice of the overall business really doesn't say much of anything," Jon Klein, CNN U.S. president, said on Friday. "It's more clear than ever, given the way that our competitors have positioned themselves, that CNN has positioned itself as the real news network."
Relying on news, rather than opinion, leaves CNN more susceptible to higher ratings peaks during big stories and lower valleys in routine times. Yet it's hard to consider the present _ new president, economic turmoil and two wars _ a slow news period.
CNN's ratings news "is very significant," said Frank Sesno, a former CNN Washington bureau chief and now a professor at George Washington University. "This is a big problem."
More significant is what CNN's ratings problems mean coupled with the daily drumbeat of layoffs in the newspaper industry, he said. With people more interested in hearing things through an ideological prism as a form of entertainment, it diminishes the value of independent voices giving straight news.
"It's getting harder to do real journalism on television," Sesno said. "This is `man the ideological barricades.'"
Fox is ready to start a new venture Monday, "The Fox Nation," which it bills as an online community that believes in "your right to express your views, your values, your voice." Fox representatives would not immediately return a call for comment.
The most problematic part of CNN's prime-time schedule is Campbell Brown's 8 p.m. show, up against O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. Brown's audience is smaller than any prime-time show on the three networks, and beneath Nancy Grace's crime hour on Headline News.
Brown leaves for a six-to-eight week maternity leave following Friday's show, and will be replaced temporarily by Roland Martin. Klein said Brown's show isn't in any danger, noting that it took years for Olbermann and O'Reilly to build their audiences and Brown has been in her job for a year.
There's been no talk of moving Grace to CNN, he said. Having Grace's crime-oriented show on Headline News allows CNN to keep its focus on being a news network, he said.
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow is a close third to Larry King, and both are beaten handily by Sean Hannity's new Fox solo show. At the 10 p.m. hour, a rerun of the show Olbermann did two hours earlier has been doing surprisingly well against CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," leading MSNBC to at least temporarily put on hold any development of a new live show then.
MSNBC chief executive Phil Griffin said the prime-time ratings are an affirmation of the network's decision to go liberal with Olbermann and Maddow. But he also said it pointed to problems at his rival.
"They've got the best brand in news," he said. "CNN, that's better than anybody. But you've got to deliver on that _ and they're not. It's a hollow promise."
He compared CNN to ESPN, which started at the same time, saying that, while ESPN has evolved aggressively and remained the leader in sports, CNN hasn't. Their evening lineup of Lou Dobbs, Brown, King and Cooper lacks any consistency or flow, he said.
"What do they stand for?" he said. "That's their biggest challenge. CNN ain't what it used to be, and that has given us an opening because we stand for something and they don't."
Klein dismissed Griffin, noting CNN is beating MSNBC handily when the full day _ not just prime-time _ is taken into account. He said that for March and the year's first three months, it was CNN's best showing since 2003, when the Iraq War started.
CNN continues to have a greater reach and reputation than its rivals across all platforms, he said. When you measure viewership across the full day _ not just prime time _ CNN has a comfortable lead over MSNBC.
"When you have other so-called news networks ceding the field of journalism, we are happy to fill that void," Klein said. "It's working for us."
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