Whereupon We Pontificate About Poor Media Outlet Choices

[Jman220]

@McTrollson

Keedglesias

[LouisCyphre]

The Washington Post

[MrWookie]

[McTrollson]

Paul Renfro

[goofy]

Inside the Meltdown at CNN

non-paywall link

But that had been under the old regime. When he took the helm of CNN, in May 2022, Licht had promised a reset with Republican voters—and with their leader. He had swaggered into the job, telling his employees that the network had lost its way under former President Jeff Zucker, that their hostile approach to Trump had alienated a broader viewership that craved sober, fact-driven coverage. These assertions thrust Licht into a two-front war: fighting to win back Republicans who had written off the network while also fighting to win over his own journalists, many of whom believed that their new boss was scapegoating them to appease his new boss, David Zaslav, who’d hired Licht with a decree to move CNN toward the ideological center.

One year into the job, Licht was losing both battles. Ratings, in decline since Trump left office, had dropped to new lows. Employee morale was even worse. A feeling of dread saturated the company. Licht had accepted the position with ambitions to rehabilitate the entire news industry, telling his peers that Trump had broken the mainstream media and that his goal was to do nothing less than “save journalism.” But Licht had lost the confidence of his own newsroom. Because of this, he had come to view the prime-time event with Trump as the moment that would vindicate his pursuit of Republican viewers while proving to his employees that he possessed a revolutionary vision for their network and the broader news media.

Trump had other ideas.

Imagine thinking, in 2023, “this leopard won’t bite my face”

[LouisCyphre]

@goofy

move CNN toward the ideological center

I’d really like to hear Licht define this ideological center

[smrk5]

Going on the hunch that they’re not all complete morons, I’m guessing the people in the organization who look at who watches/ratings and where the opportunities are may have thought that there are enough people over 60 who still want some kind of quasi-bipartisan news brand to tune into, so they can continue to sell spots for Ozempic and whatnot? I’ve tried and mostly succeeded in watching less cable news in the last ~4-5 years partly because the ads are usually for some disease I’d like to fade in the next 10-30 years.

[riverman]

I’ve watched 0 cable news since the 2020 election and probably won’t watch anything but election night ever again. The only people who engage are hyper old partisans.

[Pwn]

There is zero reason to ever watch cable news, just read news articles from whatever perspective(s) you want to hear from. Takes a fraction of the time and you will be much better informed.

[smrk5]

This was easier before the Muskification of twitter, but in general, sure. Cable news is ~only good for election nights. Maybe extreme black swan events like 9-11, otherwise it’s almost uniformly terrible.

[riverman]

My parents watch Morning Joe. LOL BOOMERS

[commonWealth]

@smrk5

This was easier before the Muskification of twitter, but in general, sure. Cable news is ~only good for election nights. Maybe extreme black swan events like 9-11, otherwise it’s almost uniformly terrible.

Hurricane coverage can be entertaining. Watch a reporter try not to get blown away while urging people not to do what they’re doing. Wait for some stupid people to do some stupid shit in the background. Hear the anchors try to thread the needle between blaming climate change without overtly saying so.

[McTrollson]

Think I cut my cable like 15 years ago? Haven’t watched cable news in like 20 years aside from what I get from Twitter and the gym.

[goofy]

2nd tweet is a very good point imo:

Michael Hobbes

Michael Hobbes

[commonWealth]

Man I have mixed feelings about that sentence. It definitely downplays the role of the callous police officer murderer who murdered him, and that’s obviously bad… However, I do think it’s accurate and important to point out that people who grow up in communities that society has more or less abandoned have been systematically forced into having fewer opportunities, less safety, more desperation, and a far higher likelihood of ending up in the criminal “justice” system with no real second chances.

I guess the give away is that this topic almost never comes up, and now suddenly it does in a way that whitewashes a murder.

[Jman220]

I think the bigger problem is that the murdering murderer who did the murder with a murderous state of mind was referred to as “callous.” I’ve done a number of closing arguments on murder cases. I can tell you that I never referred to the defendant as “callous.”

[BriansHat]

'It's like watching a snuff film': Media elites shocked by The Atlantic's...

[riverman]

I would love to hear Chuck Todd describe “what he’s built.”

Meet the Press

[TheDuker]

This headline encourages FoxNews readers to infer that the “health risks” are related to the boosters. It is of course the opposite:

Adults who aren’t current on their COVID-19 vaccine booster doses may have “relatively little remaining protection” against hospitalization compared to those who haven’t been vaccinated at all, suggests a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

[pvn]

honestly they could have framed this either way and had the same effect. The same people who read this and say “SEE!!?? Even the CDC says boosters will kill ya!” would have read an honestly-framed version of this and said “well OF COURSE the soros-funded CDC would tell you the booster is safe, they gotta trick ya into taking the microchip poison”