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Home Front: Culture Wars
Turner: CNN Focuses Too Much on Perverts
2005-06-02
CNN should cover international news and the environment, not the "pervert of the day," network founder Ted Turner said Wednesday as the first 24-hour news network turned 25.
Dang. How long has it been since I've agreed with Ted Turner? Though I'd leave out the part about the environment. Hard news environmental stories, yes, but most of the pseudoscientific viewing with alarm that passes for "news," no.
Turner, an outspoken media mogul who started CNN in 1980 but no longer controls the network, said he envisioned CNN as a place where rapes and murders that dominated local news wouldn't be emphasized, but he's seeing too much of that "trivial news" on the network he created, now second in ratings to Fox News Channel.
Fox News runs too much of the Scandal du jour, too. When Greta comes on, I just turn it off.
"I would like to see us to return to a little more international coverage on the domestic feed and a little more environmental coverage, and, maybe, maybe a little less of the pervert of the day," he said in a speech to CNN employees outside the old Atlanta mansion where the network first aired. "You know, we have a lot of perverts on today, and I know that, but is that really news? I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well."
I suppose he'd have to be mentioned, even on a hard news channel, but I'd give him maybe 30 seconds and then get back to the substantial stuff.
His remarks won applause and laughter from CNN employees, but the moderator for Turner's remarks, CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour, said: "But everyone else is doing that. Why do you think it's important not to?" Turner replied: "Somebody's got to be a serious news person. Somebody's got to be the most respected name in television news, and I wanted that position for CNN."
During GW-1 CNN did one hell of a job, even with Peter Arnett in Baghdad, even with the occasional story on combat gynecologists. The network news organizations couldn't touch them, and they bitched about how CNN was just reporting what was given to them or what they saw, not "helping the public understand." Apparently they listened to the criticism, because now Fox is walking all over them.
Posted by:Fred

#15  ima guesn ship now that em gipper an em popes ded he thinkerin he can safely clame that.

saw that noshen passed along sumwherez. :)
Posted by: muck4doo   2005-06-02 23:15  

#14  Turner's pitch is that the news shouldn't focus on crime because it detracts from reporters telling us about all the great ways in which liberals can take money out of our pockets and hand it to someone currently on the their favored list - and pat themselves on the back for their public-spiritedness.
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-06-02 17:25  

#13  Good call German Ally
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2005-06-02 17:00  

#12  "Turner: CNN Focuses Too Much on Perverts"

Says the man who married... ummm... Jane Fonda???
Posted by: True German Ally   2005-06-02 16:57  

#11  LOL! charp I Mucki!
Posted by: Shipman   2005-06-02 14:09  

#10  More international news = Bush is bad type stuff.
Less Pervert news = Stop pointing out the holes in the Democrats light on crime everything goes social agenda.

He may be right (I think it's a crime that the Michael Jackson/Scott Peterson/Robert Blake stories get any play) but I don't trust his motives.
Posted by: rjschwarz   2005-06-02 11:15  

#9  That's not quite the correct answer, TC3562. It should be:

Q: Mr. Turner, are you saying they spend too much time with Ted Kennedy?

A: We'll run off the side of that bridge when we come to it.
Posted by: Jackal   2005-06-02 11:08  

#8  This man has issues: "I wanted to be the New York Times of the airway -- not the New York Post, but the New York Times -- and that's what we set out to do, and we did it." Yes, you sure did.

Posted by: Dragon Fly   2005-06-02 10:52  

#7  thisn wuz my favrit part:

As usual, the 65-year-old Turner made his remarks with a roguish smile.

The media pioneer called CNN his greatest professional achievement.

And at one point he claimed partial credit for ending the Cold War.

Amanpour asked his if he honestly thought he had a hand in it.

"I'm absolutely certain I did," he said.
Posted by: muck4doo   2005-06-02 10:33  

#6  ack! im jus submited this. sumone pleeze taker it outta em cue.

goddamit im hate wen that hapens.

>:(
Posted by: muck4doo   2005-06-02 10:29  

#5  CNN should cover international news and the environment, not the "pervert of the day," network founder Ted Turner...

Q: Mr. Turner, are you saying they spend too much time with Ted Kennedy?

A: We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Posted by: Throluth Clush3562   2005-06-02 08:59  

#4  lol, RD! I'm like Fred on this one though...when's the last time I agreed with Ted Turner? ZF is right in 1 respect...MOST int'l news doesn't really affect us, but I would like to see more int'l news on the jihadis (and not just the latest bombing in Israel). Cover more of SE Asia/Africa. Some stories appear on the surface not to affect us, but in the WoT, they just might if you dig deep enough. Of course, digging is asking too much of the MSM "journalists." I learn more about the WoT by 8 am on Rantburg than I could watching any Cable news channel (incl. Fox). Of course, that's what you get when you want "news" 24/7...you have to fill in the slow news days w/ more mundane/local stuff.
Posted by: BA   2005-06-02 07:46  

#3  Christiane Amanpour:

has she started to shave yet?
Posted by: Red Dog   2005-06-02 01:43  

#2  is there anyone who really cares about Michael for him to rate the 24/7 coverage.

Fox has the best reporting - in that it actually reports, rather than proselytizes like all of the other news channels do. But even Fox has the same daily line up of Laci, jonbenet, michael, martha, car bomb, whip america with a wet noodle, and democrat blames republican.

In the new world where the news of the world, whatever I personally consider to be news, is at my fingertips in an instant - they just can't survive until they start reporting something of substance.
Posted by: 2b   2005-06-02 01:41  

#1  Most international news doesn't affect us, whereas the pervert of the day does. When you compare the number of murders over three decades to the number of victims of terrorist attacks, there is simply no question as to which is more deadly. (Of course, where the police are stretched to the limit trying to catch murderers, our military wasn't doing enough to protect us from terrorists. Until after 9/11).
Posted by: Zhang Fei   2005-06-02 00:22  

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