Brian Stelter out at CNN

[AG_PhamD]

Hah, I made a hilarious misreading of a Columbia Journalism Review newsletter this morning, they had extensive coverage of media reaction to CNN's decision to fire Stelter, and at one point I ran into this phrase:

"Licht’s plans for CNN remain somewhat unclear"​

​

but i misread it as "....remain somewhat nuclear."

I might not be way wrong on that either, ya think?

I don’t think it’s that surprising when you consider how poorly CNN is performing in terms of key demographics and financially. For the functioning of society I think it’s necessary to have a reasonably objective news organization that isn’t essentially the propaganda arm of the Democrat or Republican Party. I think the clear evidence for that is that there is a direct line of hiring between the White House and news outlets- i.e. Keleigh Mcenany + Larry Kudlow and Fox News, Jen Psaki + Symone Sanders and MSNBC.

What the media landscape in relatively recent times has demonstrated though is people don’t care about the actual news, they only care about hearing the news they want to with their preferred political spin. That’s exactly why Fox News can be so successful.

While I think there are some legitimate journalists on every channel, far too many use their platform for political activism than actual journalists.

As I said, I think there is a desperate need for legitimate journalism- actual reporting that isn’t pushing an agenda dictated by the political elite of one party or another. But as I also mentioned, I don’t think that’s a viable business model for the major networks. There’s no doubt the left wing media was extremely successful during the Trump years by focusing almost exclusively on him.

I don’t see CNN’s viewership and subsequent financial problems as being rooted in bias, rather a complete lack of credibility, some examples I highlighted before. Not to mention a number of their anchors (Cuomo, Stelter, etc) come off as either completely disingenuous and/or pompous

Then again I don’t quite understand how Fox retains its viewers considering many of their hosts’ personalities are beyond tolerable. I couldn’t imagine spending 10 minutes in a room with some of these people- whether it be the snide, sophomoric attitude of people like Jesse Watters or Tucker Carlson, the constant outrage + toxically abrasive persona of Jeanine Pirro, the blatant propaganda mouthpiece that is Sean Hannity, the snide, hateful idiocy of Laura Ingram, etc. Regardless of whether or not you agree with them politically, all their personalities just seem incredibly off-putting.

 

[AG_PhamD]

In other news it looks like Jeffery Toobin got the boot too from CNN. Rumor has it that was that he was forced out rather than allegedly “deciding” to leave.

Either way I think it’s in CNN’s best interest to cut ties with Toobin. They can’t be on the one hand be condemning others for sexual harassment (ie Trump, Weinstein, every other major me too case) and then give a pass to their employee. I can’t fathom any company having an employee accidentally expose himself in the most disturbing manner possible on a zoom call and still have a job when all is said and done. Regardless of Toobin’s intent (and so assume this incident was not intentional), for the sake of optics and maintaining credibility I see no other choice.

It very much seems like one can do no wrong In the eyes of Zucker so long he either favored you for whatever reason or you were somehow loyal to him. That’s never a good way to run a business and certainly not the News business.

I do find CNN’s article rather interesting stating “Toobin's analysis was unflinching and he became something of a bogeyman of some conservatives for his outspoken commentary about former President Donald Trump.”
I’m not aware of Toobin being a “bogeyman” to “some conservatives”(only his coworkers that had to see his zoom performance…sorry, cheap shot I know). But seriously, I hate this self-aggrandizing nonsense CNN does this thing where they imply they are so noble and courageous for criticizing Trump. The media should hold the President accountable. And it’s not like CNN isn’t one of the most powerful platforms in the world.

 

[Eric]

In other news it looks like Jeffery Toobin got the boot too from CNN. Rumor has it that was that he was forced out rather than allegedly “deciding” to leave.

Either way I think it’s in CNN’s best interest to cut ties with Toobin. They can’t be on the one hand be condemning others for sexual harassment (ie Trump, Weinstein, every other major me too case) and then give a pass to their employee. I can’t fathom any company having an employee accidentally expose himself in the most disturbing manner possible on a zoom call and still have a job when all is said and done. Regardless of Toobin’s intent (and so assume this incident was not intentional), for the sake of optics and maintaining credibility I see no other choice.

It very much seems like one can do no wrong In the eyes of Zucker so long he either favored you for whatever reason or you were somehow loyal to him. That’s never a good way to run a business and certainly not the News business.

I do find CNN’s article rather interesting stating “Toobin's analysis was unflinching and he became something of a bogeyman of some conservatives for his outspoken commentary about former President Donald Trump.”
I’m not aware of Toobin being a “bogeyman” to “some conservatives”(only his coworkers that had to see his zoom performance…sorry, cheap shot I know). But seriously, I hate this self-aggrandizing nonsense CNN does this thing where they imply they are so noble and courageous for criticizing Trump. The media should hold the President accountable. And it’s not like CNN isn’t one of the most powerful platforms in the world.

Yet CNN has held him more accountable for that than Conservatives ever did for Donald Trump and his 18 accusers of sexual misconduct, and admission that he likes to take married women and "grab them by the pussy". So if we're going to call out networks for giving free passes here let's at least try to be fair about it.

 

[lizkat]

I don’t think it’s that surprising when you consider how poorly CNN is performing in terms of key demographics and financially. For the functioning of society I think it’s necessary to have a reasonably objective news organization that isn’t essentially the propaganda arm of the Democrat or Republican Party. I think the clear evidence for that is that there is a direct line of hiring between the White House and news outlets- i.e. Keleigh Mcenany + Larry Kudlow and Fox News, Jen Psaki + Symone Sanders and MSNBC.

What the media landscape in relatively recent times has demonstrated though is people don’t care about the actual news, they only care about hearing the news they want to with their preferred political spin. That’s exactly why Fox News can be so successful.

While I think there are some legitimate journalists on every channel, far too many use their platform for political activism than actual journalists.

As I said, I think there is a desperate need for legitimate journalism- actual reporting that isn’t pushing an agenda dictated by the political elite of one party or another. But as I also mentioned, I don’t think that’s a viable business model for the major networks. There’s no doubt the left wing media was extremely successful during the Trump years by focusing almost exclusively on him.

I don’t see CNN’s viewership and subsequent financial problems as being rooted in bias, rather a complete lack of credibility, some examples I highlighted before. Not to mention a number of their anchors (Cuomo, Stelter, etc) come off as either completely disingenuous and/or pompous

Then again I don’t quite understand how Fox retains its viewers considering many of their hosts’ personalities are beyond tolerable. I couldn’t imagine spending 10 minutes in a room with some of these people- whether it be the snide, sophomoric attitude of people like Jesse Watters or Tucker Carlson, the constant outrage + toxically abrasive persona of Jeanine Pirro, the blatant propaganda mouthpiece that is Sean Hannity, the snide, hateful idiocy of Laura Ingram, etc. Regardless of whether or not you agree with them politically, all their personalities just seem incredibly off-putting.

Nieman Lab had an interesting if rather densely quantitative piece up very recently about the difference in "silo" effects of social media news gathering and participation versus sticking to TV for getting news.

Cable news has a much bigger effect on America’s polarization than social media, study finds

"Compared to online audiences, partisan TV news consumers tend not to stray too far from their narrow sets of preferred news sources."

www.niemanlab.org

The piece is not that long but I had to read it a couple times; the stats mentioned are talking about different behaviors and different percentages of different populations, e.g. overall, versus both right and left leaning individuals engaging in choosing their info sources.

The bottom lines of the research and the article though were both reassuring and alarming. Reassuring in that a very large percentage of TV viewers (about 80%) actually do switch up their viewing "lean" in a six month period. Remember though that most people don't even get their news from TV...

On to the alarming part, small though the total numbers of viewers are: the apparent effect of not switching up one's TV news viewing sources over time is very polarizing. It does tend to make people on both right and left adopt more extreme views -- of each other, and of whatever news events they see reported by their chosen sources.

TV viewing is passive, social media is interactive, but people who sit in front of the same left or right TV news sources most of the time are likely to have become more partisan as time goes on. So then turn the (generally somewhat younger end of the TV viewing cohort) TV watchers loose on social media and behold the cacophony of relatively small numbers of people who get their news off a TV set yelling about the coming apocalypse and how they're ready to take the other guy on right now. They are a minority among all social media users and the US population overall, but they can be among the most polarized via their TV news gathering habit.

Pew's 2021 look at news gathering also highlights large differences in age groups in the USA, in terms of preference for TV news versus digital platforms and within the latter, social media or news sites.

More than eight-in-ten Americans get news from digital devices

More than eight-in-ten U.S. adults say they get news from a smartphone, computer or tablet “often” or “sometimes.”

www.pewresearch.org

In light of all that I am perhaps only mildly astonished that the impact of Fox on American political opinion --not necessarily translated into votes-- has been so marked. It comes down to Trump's Republican Party having decided to play Fox like a fiddle, basically. They don't bother much with the other networks or cable outlets. Democrats do, and have ended up not just on MSNBC or CNN but also on the three traditional and somewhat more centrist networks. Since as a party the Dem's views internally are more diverse, and since currently there is a growing difference between progressive and establishment Dems, the Dems message is inherently mixed even before it's diluted.

Meanwhile Fox helped turned the GOP into the party of Trump, and although Fox itself may be able to dismount that weary nag with relative ease, the party Trump hijacked is having trouble scoping out how to keep Trump's base but get back to selling a policy platform to undecided voters in years ahead.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Yet CNN has held him more accountable for that than Conservatives ever did for Donald Trump and his 18 accusers of sexual misconduct, and admission that he likes to take married women and "grab them by the pussy". So if we're going to call out networks for giving free passes here let's at least try to be fair about it.

I think that goes without saying. In that this is a thread about CNN I’m going to talk about primarily CNN. To go through the hypocrisy of every network would or issue a disclaimer on every post is exhausting and impractical.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. And just to be clear, just because I don’t mention one network in the same breath as another doesn’t mean I’m exuding them. If I say something critical of Biden doesn’t mean I somehow approve of Trump or visa versa.

I will reiterate though Fox and MSNBC are outwardly biased outlets and hypocrisy is therefore essentially expected. CNN likes to claim they’re unbiased or at least balanced in their reporting, If you look at the Media Bias Chart rankings they are far from a neutral source (almost on par with MSNBC, but I’d argue there methodology doesn’t seem entirely accurate or necessarily reliable when they also rank individual shows in the same chart). I’m not sure if they still use their “Most Trusted Name in News” slogan, but current trustworthiness surveys put them among the least trustworthy (not surprisingly along with Fox and MSNBC)

I would love to see a show that has people on the left and right debating the topics of the day. And I don’t mean Russian-propaganda style Fox News “The 5” or The View (where you have 4 GOP shills versus 1 timid democrat or 4 democrats versus 1 republican).Or what all of the networks do where they bring on some random person holding the opposing view who is likely intentionally chosen because they are incapable of making a good argument, hold some niche radical view, or can’t speak fast enough before the commercial comes to make a point, or just comes off as a weirdo. The obvious tactic is to try to sway viewers opinion simply by means of group think and singling out an artificially created outlier. How about 1-2 competent people from either side making a legitimate argument? That would never happen because it would reveal the games the media plays.

 

[Eric]

I think that goes without saying. In that this is a thread about CNN I’m going to talk about primarily CNN. To go through the hypocrisy of every network would or issue a disclaimer on every post is exhausting and impractical.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. And just to be clear, just because I don’t mention one network in the same breath as another doesn’t mean I’m exuding them. If I say something critical of Biden doesn’t mean I somehow approve of Trump or visa versa.

I will reiterate though Fox and MSNBC are outwardly biased outlets and hypocrisy is therefore essentially expected. CNN likes to claim they’re unbiased or at least balanced in their reporting, If you look at the Media Bias Chart rankings they are far from a neutral source (almost on par with MSNBC, but I’d argue there methodology doesn’t seem entirely accurate or necessarily reliable when they also rank individual shows in the same chart). I’m not sure if they still use their “Most Trusted Name in News” slogan, but current trustworthiness surveys put them among the least trustworthy (not surprisingly along with Fox and MSNBC)

I would love to see a show that has people on the left and right debating the topics of the day. And I don’t mean Russian-propaganda style Fox News “The 5” or The View (where you have 4 GOP shills versus 1 timid democrat or 4 democrats versus 1 republican).Or what all of the networks do where they bring on some random person holding the opposing view who is likely intentionally chosen because they are incapable of making a good argument, hold some niche radical view, or can’t speak fast enough before the commercial comes to make a point, or just comes off as a weirdo. The obvious tactic is to try to sway viewers opinion simply by means of group think and singling out an artificially created outlier. How about 1-2 competent people from either side making a legitimate argument? That would never happen because it would reveal the games the media plays.

I couldn't disagree more here, what makes it relevant is the same people who are attacking CNN for this are the ones who want our hands off of Trump for the exact same thing. It's not whataboutism, it directly contradicts their narrative in a way that anyone with common sense has to point and laugh. If they criticize both equally then they have a case, otherwise it's simply political hyperbole.

 

[AG_PhamD]

Nieman Lab had an interesting if rather densely quantitative piece up very recently about the difference in "silo" effects of social media news gathering and participation versus sticking to TV for getting news.

Cable news has a much bigger effect on America’s polarization than social media, study finds

"Compared to online audiences, partisan TV news consumers tend not to stray too far from their narrow sets of preferred news sources."

www.niemanlab.org

The piece is not that long but I had to read it a couple times; the stats mentioned are talking about different behaviors and different percentages of different populations, e.g. overall, versus both right and left leaning individuals engaging in choosing their info sources.

The bottom lines of the research and the article though were both reassuring and alarming. Reassuring in that a very large percentage of TV viewers (about 80%) actually do switch up their viewing "lean" in a six month period. Remember though that most people don't even get their news from TV...

On to the alarming part, small though the total numbers of viewers are: the apparent effect of not switching up one's TV news viewing sources over time is very polarizing. It does tend to make people on both right and left adopt more extreme views -- of each other, and of whatever news events they see reported by their chosen sources.

TV viewing is passive, social media is interactive, but people who sit in front of the same left or right TV news sources most of the time are likely to have become more partisan as time goes on. So then turn the (generally somewhat younger end of the TV viewing cohort) TV watchers loose on social media and behold the cacophony of relatively small numbers of people who get their news off a TV set yelling about the coming apocalypse and how they're ready to take the other guy on right now. They are a minority among all social media users and the US population overall, but they can be among the most polarized via their TV news gathering habit.

Pew's 2021 look at news gathering also highlights large differences in age groups in the USA, in terms of preference for TV news versus digital platforms and within the latter, social media or news sites.

More than eight-in-ten Americans get news from digital devices

More than eight-in-ten U.S. adults say they get news from a smartphone, computer or tablet “often” or “sometimes.”

www.pewresearch.org

In light of all that I am perhaps only mildly astonished that the impact of Fox on American political opinion --not necessarily translated into votes-- has been so marked. It comes down to Trump's Republican Party having decided to play Fox like a fiddle, basically. They don't bother much with the other networks or cable outlets. Democrats do, and have ended up not just on MSNBC or CNN but also on the three traditional and somewhat more centrist networks. Since as a party the Dem's views internally are more diverse, and since currently there is a growing difference between progressive and establishment Dems, the Dems message is inherently mixed even before it's diluted.

Meanwhile Fox helped turned the GOP into the party of Trump, and although Fox itself may be able to dismount that weary nag with relative ease, the party Trump hijacked is having trouble scoping out how to keep Trump's base but get back to selling a policy platform to undecided voters in years ahead.

Excellent points regarding social media, especially when you consider how the social media platforms’ algorithms promote an echo chamber of ideas in order to increase activity.

I do agree that Fox is responsible for turning the GOP into the party of Trump- but are not entirely responsible. It’s been reported (and backed up by Wikileaks emails) that one of HRC’s campaign strategies was to basically prop up Trump and push the republicans further right in order to create the least palatable candidate possible to run against. The so called “pied piper” strategy. The left wing media gave Trump all the free publicity a candidate could ever ask for. I remember watching 2016 election coverage and realizing virtually no time was designated to other Republican candidates.

Do I think this was left wing media collusion- I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Especially when media routinely demonstrates that they essentially serve as another mouthpiece for political parties. That said, Trump’s campaign and presidency basically ran like a reality TV show which Americans apparently can’t get enough of. So he was also extremely profitable for the networks. The more ridiculous behavior they could air and outrage they could stir up the melee viewership and profits.

And the same strategy is occurring presently with the primaries, something largely ignored by the left wing media. The DNC last I checked had spent $40m on propping up right wing crazies (specifically stop the steal candidates) in an attempt to have them beat out more rational candidates as they believe these radical candidates will be easier to beat. Thank god I refuse to donate to politicians/parties because I would be pissed to see my money go to such a strategy. This could easily backfire and backfire spectacularly (as it did in 2016, under slightly different circumstances). Many Democrats have rightfully expressed concerns over this strategy. And if the stop the steal conspiracy is such a danger to democracy (which I absolutely believe it is) I find it shameful to be enabling this nonsense. And it surely raises the question about complicity in promoting the conspiracy. If Trump is to be held accountable for promoting voter fraud conspiracies (and I believe he should), there is something to be said about those intentionally funding candidates who promote the conspiracy despite knowing the claims are false and how dangerous they are.

Obviously the “pied piper” strategy backfired in the 2016 election… at least in the short term. Perhaps in the long term their plan will work out, at least in some metrics. Perhaps in 2024 their plan will have ultimately been successful.

So again, Fox News is definitely responsible for creating and perpetuating this cult of personality- and the whole you’re either with us or against us (us meaning Trump) mentality within the Republican Party. But I think it’s also true the Democratic Party/Media has a meaningful degree of responsibility in creating/elevating the monster that is Trump.

 

[AG_PhamD]

I couldn't disagree more here, what makes it relevant is the same people who are attacking CNN for this are the ones who want our hands off of Trump for the exact same thing. It's not whataboutism, it directly contradicts their narrative in a way that anyone with common sense has to point and laugh. If they criticize both equally then they have a case, otherwise it's simply political hyperbole.

I think there’s some miscommunication going on here. I’m talking about me sharing my thoughts personally. I think you have interpreted this as me saying the right shouldn’t need to hold their people to the same level account as they do on the left. What I meant was it’s obvious (aka goes without saying) Fox News will ignore Trump’s sexual harassment allegations while being laser focused on the opposition’s sexual impropriety.

On a thread about CNN I’m not necessarily going to list out the hypocrisy of right wing media or write some sort of disclaimer just for the sake of ME appearing balanced in a forum post. In other words, recognizing the hypocrisy of the right when I’m talking about the hypocrisy of the left goes without saying, especially in the context of everything else I’ve said. Context being the multiple posts I’ve made recently pointing out Fox’s double standards and manipulative tactics.