Vox skewers CNN

[Fru]

 

So.....what you're saying is Trump isn't completely off base when he disparages CNN as fake news?

 

Trump is so far off-base with news (and reality in general) he wouldn't know what real news is if it punched him in his face.

 

Sensationalized, info-tainment, which is sadly what most networks are now, are NOT necessarily fake.

 

I think ALL media needs to separate actual news from pop culture, entertainment, celebrity, sports, etc.

 

One of the biggest problems in modern news media, to my thinking, has been the melding of news with personal opinions.

 

And for the love of whatever, could news media outlets STOP getting "reactions" or "takes" from talking heads? I realize it will never happen, but all I want from news media are the facts. That's it.

 

 

Agreed.

 

One thing that bothered me a lot was the way the major networks treated the debates like it was Monday Night Football. It gave me a very macabre vibe.

[Making Chimichangas]

This has been true since long before this election cycle, and it's not exclusive to CNN. This is a brutal and direct evisceration by Vox, and it's spot on.

 

 

CNN isn't fake news. But they've surrendered wholesale to sensationalism. Politics-as-sport theater hurts our democracy. There are serious journalists at CNN, and yet the network thrives on this.

 

Plea to all you folks out there -- please, please do not spend your days watching CNN (and other cable news networks) and consider that your way of keeping informed.

 

Zoogs, questions for you and anyone else who wants to take a stab:

 

Do think this tendency of CNN (and practically all "major media" out there) to go the "sensationalism" route is due to having to fill 24 hours of content every single day?

 

Do you think it is strictly money/revenue generation driven?

 

Or, are the "big brains" at the elite media level are just trying to give the highest number of people content they think we want?

 

I admit, for these questions, I don't think there is strictly a right or wrong answer.

[zoogs]

I think it's evidence-based. They don't merely think it's what we want, they know it and have been extremely successful based on these decisions. The vid did a great job going through a few of the interviews with this CNN guy who was BOASTING about how the had made the keen insight that politics was sports , and they were covering it as such.

[knapplc]

There's a tremendous amount of money spent on researching the thought patterns and behaviors of TV viewers. Those studies resulted in the programming we see today. It's all based on what will trigger people, because triggered people tune in.

 

That's cynical as hell, but it's the truth. The days of the Noble Newsman providing pure content are, mostly, over. We're in the age of catered "news" now, where what sells is what's produced.

 

Truth be damned.

[Enhance]

The following isn't directly intended for you knapplc (even though you and I have had this discussion in another thread before).

 

TV ratings and viewer/reader analytics are incredible tools (in good and bad ways) for just about all media outlets. In one hand, they're an excellent way to make news judgements, and in the other, they cater to tendencies that can at times be disappointing. The media industry, just like all industries, has had to adapt to stay alive.

 

I don't think it's worth arguing who deserves more blame - the people or the media. They're both culpable to one another. I do, however, think it's important for people to remember that most media outlets are for profit companies. They have to sell what people want to see or else they'll go about of business. Most companies will never get anywhere selling what they think people need.

 

I also don't think there has ever been such a thing as "Noble Newsman providing pure content." Newspapers and television stations have almost always been about business. I understand the point being made, but I think it paints an unfair picture, as if there aren't journalists out there who give a damn anymore. There are. The world is just a different place now.

[Landlord]

"go out of business" is a little dramatic. what we're really saying is that they won't be massive billion dollar profit generating juggernauts. Which can't be anything in our society other than a good thing.

[Enhance]

"go out of business" is a little dramatic. what we're really saying is that they won't be massive billion dollar profit generating juggernauts. Which can't be anything in our society other than a good thing.

It might be dramatic in your opinion, but when you expand your viewpoint and consider the facts, you're more wrong than you're right. One thing I've tried to do when it comes to media discussions on this board is insert a more localized view. I think it's common for many people, particularly those who have never worked in the industry, to think *big* when they think of "the media" i.e. The New York Times, WaPost, the networks (Fox, ABC, CNN), etc.

 

However, smaller newspapers are disappearing all over the country. TV stations in lower to mid-sized markets are struggling with costs and viewership. And, yes, even the perennial powerhouses that are "billion dollar profit generating juggernauts" are having to cut costs.

 

Do I feel bad that some network CEOs or high level execs aren't sitting as pretty as they once were? No. Am I saddened to hear about hundreds of journalists, print operators and circulation personnel losing their jobs every year and nobody is replacing them? Yes.

[knapplc]

That's a factor of the instant information age, and it will continue to happen. Why pay today for a newspaper full of stuff I knew about yesterday?

[Danny Bateman]

Enhance raises a good point though. If you really care about journalism and news that aren't on the major network scale, one of the best things you can do to support it is a subscription to your local paper or watching more local news.

 

I read an argument somewhere - it may have been Vox or another outlet or perhaps someone made it here on the board - that shifting your media diet to a more local focus can do wonders of good avoiding sensationalism and constant outrage over issues about which we mostly have no control and allows us to focus on ones we do.

[knapplc]

Except local news, especially in print, is dying. It cannot survive in a world where they print tomorrow what happened today. News doesn't work that way anymore. We have social media and we know about events live. Whatever context print can provide has already been gleaned by the time the printers start rolling.

 

News is all about now. Print is all about later.

 

I imagine if Milk Men controlled the news that we would have been inundated with stories about how sad it is that the art of delivering milk was dying - and it was. Lots of good people lost their jobs. The only reason we hear as much about the death of old-fashioned news is that the people who deliver us news are more interested in it.

[Moiraine]

Most larger local papers have online versions now.

[Enhance]

That's a factor of the instant information age, and it will continue to happen. Why pay today for a newspaper full of stuff I knew about yesterday?

Most media outlets publish their content online and that includes newspapers. They know they can't wait until the next day to post a story.

[Enhance]

I read an argument somewhere - it may have been Vox or another outlet or perhaps someone made it here on the board - that shifting your media diet to a more local focus can do wonders of good avoiding sensationalism and constant outrage over issues about which we mostly have no control and allows us to focus on ones we do.

Is it the post from Sam McKewon I posted above?

[Danny Bateman]

 

I read an argument somewhere - it may have been Vox or another outlet or perhaps someone made it here on the board - that shifting your media diet to a more local focus can do wonders of good avoiding sensationalism and constant outrage over issues about which we mostly have no control and allows us to focus on ones we do.

Is it the post from Sam McKewon I posted above?

 

 

That was it. Good catch.

[knapplc]

 

That's a factor of the instant information age, and it will continue to happen. Why pay today for a newspaper full of stuff I knew about yesterday?

Most media outlets publish their content online and that includes newspapers. They know they can't wait until the next day to post a story.

 

You were talking about local news sources. Most small-town papers - the ones that are going out of business - aren't putting content online for people to consume. Those are from larger locales, like Lincoln, Omaha, and larger. In the context of the vanishing small-town paper, that online source is not as good as the big-city stuff and often largely irrelevant.

 

If we want to talk about the fact that news is online now, that's fine. That can include a discussion of print being dead, and it is (or at least nearly so), and that's fine. News delivery will evolve like every other industry.