CNN: Television's Great Orifice

Fox News, as a commercial broadcasting station, is far easier to defend than CNN. (hooked you) But, before I go too far into this rant, I did want to say a few kind words to about what CNN has done for me.

As a recovering masochists, I know all to well the difficulty of suppressing the daily temptation of a nice, sizzling, self-inflicted chemical burn on the back of my thigh. In the past, I would control my masochistic ways by subjecting myself to 4 hours of Microsoft Minesweeper, while listening to marathons of Weather Report, the Rippingtons, and the “best of” Lawrence Welk. Thankfully, though, I have now come to realize there is a better way…

I’ve come to bring you the good news – and I am speaking directly too you fellow recovering masochist brothers and sisters – you too can suppress ‘the urge’.  All you have to do is watch CNN for an hour. After the hour is up, you will ask yourself: “why am I doing this to myself?” And at that point, a chemical burn seems very disagreeable. Thank you CNN.

So, now that we’ve wrapped up that rather lengthy and unnecessary introduction, lets get to the controversial point that was this essay’s hook. CNN is a horrible station, and though Fox is horrible too… at least it is mildly entertaining.

Now, you might be saying to yourself, “But Nick, CNN is on our side! Fox is on their side!” And to that, you silly talk-to-yourself-er hypothetical reader, I say: “It is my contention that the majority of CNN defenders reasoning goes no deeper than that.”  

Anyone who bothers to think will note that Fox news is 10 times more entertaining than CNN. The O’Reilly factor, for example, can usually keep me on the edge of my seat for a good 10-20 min. It gets my blood flowing; by the end of the show, I’m ready to dive head first into the TV and body slam Bill, and his arrogant drivel onto fox studio’s hard concrete floors. What does CNN have to offer in compariosn? Well, let’s start with Larry King.

What can one about Larry? I mean really think about this, hypothetical reader. Who is Larry King… and why does his head constantly appear on our TV screens? I’ve gone to great lengths to explore this question… and I challenge you to give a better answer.

Larry King is:

  1. That guy who wears suspenders, and insists on using old fashioned microphones as props.
  2. That guy whose face has been known to cause acid flashbacks.
  3. That guy on TV who talks to people and asks them questions.

I wish I could think of a better way to describe Larry, but alas, I cannot. And actually, writing this, I’ve become quite bored. And might I add, that I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the boredom hit me as soon as I started thinking about Larry King. Again, at least O’Reilly keeps me awake, and writing.

Who else is there? Wolf Blitzer… Aaron Brown… and you know what. If your still reading, I think you’ll respect my decision to not expand upon those “television personalities”.

God, see what CNN does to us?

Comments

What in the hell

Chemical burns to the back of the thigh? LOL Minesweeper. O'reilly does suck ass man. Go Fox go.

Useful for one thing

CNN is only useful for quickly ascertaining the tone and content of a particular day's propaganda, and even then only on their website.  That anyone actually watches the TV channel baffles me. 

But you can get a good daily rundown of what the masses are to be spoonfed by glancing at their home page.  Generally, it breaks down like this: 

1) A few silly stories just to distract you

2) At least one salacious story to activate the reptilian brain

3) A story designed to show how evil the Iraqi resistance is or, alternatively, how good and noble is our military (Today 2 and 3 are combined into a story about Lynndie "The Torturin' Pornstar" England's conviction.)

If you want real investigative journalism -- or even a halfway accurate semblance of accurate news -- you'll never find it on CNN and seldom in the mainstream media as a whole. 

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I wouldn't be surprised if CN

I wouldn't be surprised if CNN or any other large organization is resorting to these tactics. Frankly, I'm surprised they weren't doing stuff like this 10 years ago. I don't think companies should be so afraid of the internet. I think their fear comes from not being able to have open and honest discussion with the public. They can't have open and honest discussions because they're basically puppets of the gov't. and big business. I would love to see employees of CNN and other news outlets openly post to the blogs of average people, but you won't see it. Go read a site like counterpunch.com and see how much of the news the media is overlooking because of its interest in big business and keeping the status quo in power. I honestly don't care that any organization is resorting to these tactics(of posting garbage to blogs)-in fact, I expect it-what does bother me is the corporate news that is misleading the public everyday in their newscasts and newspapers.

Hope You're Wrong About This

But a link from Dean's World makes me wonder. Personally I'm still not convinced that Big Media (in any form) is all that interested in bloggers. Yeah, I know, that runs contrary to popular blog thoght on all ends of the political spectrum, but I tend to think it's due to the disgust (substitute "paranoid" if applicatible) most bloggers have towards the poor quality of "big" media in general. Good luck. Hope you record IP numbers because any "analysis" you come up with is bound to be very arbitrary IMHO. But I'm also wondering if this isn't like some local Republicans (Democrats) trashing Democrat (Republican) yard signs a week before an election. FWIW.

Larry King

Nick, Larry King is Republican all the way. That's no secret. Just be greatful that the man isn't writing movie reviews for USA Today, anymore.

[comment removed and under investigation]

Notice: this comment was removed for 2 reasons. 1. Some text was included that appears to have been specifically designed so that google would "punish" this article, and lower it from being on top of a google search for "CNN Blog". I'm in the process of studying it, and will post an update. 2. I'm suspicious that the author of this comment is either an employee or being contracted by CNN. Though it was hardly spam, it violates the independent spirit of this blog. Additional note: I was unaware that this article would actually snag that search. As a result, I've decided to re-write it so that my point is clearer. I -- under no circumstances -- would ever, even with a gun to my head, perfer gossip over Larry King. (And seeing how I described Larry, you can just imagine how much I like gossip). That said, you are free to return, and add another comment. In addition, if I've made a mistake, let me know. Otherwise, nice try... you're work was rather impressive, and you almost blended in.

Share the removed comment with us

I was attracted by the article in Wired (http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,67371,00.html) to this quite interesting feature. Maybe you could share the removed comment to more precisely show wat was wrong about is. Make it an image (not indexable by the bots crawling around) so I would not influence this page.