A Different CNN

et tu liberale?

Being a News junky (at least before 8 am) I'm usually drawn to CNN and FNC and like to compare the two shows, styles and the deliveries of the same story. There is definately a difference between the two politically though up until now it hasn't been that obvious unless the person watching was a raving Liberal or raving Conservative.

What I did notice was the supposed "Chemestry" of O'Brien and O'Brien on CNN leaves me flat - like mashed potato without the salt or butter. First, Miles O'Brien is MUCH more liberal politically than the person he replaced. Both O'Briens inject much of their own (maybe their editors/producers?) viewpoints, comments, remarks, etc. in the story. This usually isn't that bad of a deal unless it gets in the way of actually delivering the copy.

First lets get something straight. Watching news is watching a trained monkey read copy from a teleprompter - that's it. While it may be a skill that takes time and effort to do well, the monkey needs to also be good looking (as who wants to see an ugly monkey read copy?) as well as read good copy. It's like anything else, either you are really good at it and you are one of the "beautiful" people or your not. If your not, you get to be a field reporter or an editor - if you are, you get camera time and the big bucks for looking good.

My beef isn't so much about the looking good but the injection of politics in the "news". Now we really haven't had hard news on television for a while. 60 minutes masquerades as a hard news program, but their editors and monkeys are so blindly liberal it's difficult to get facts on certain subjects. I would say it's like watching the 700 club for the left - you ever think Pat Robertson will come out and say "Gee - maybe abortion isn't so bad after all!" - Not. Nor should we expect a 60 minutes to report the facts on say, guns in America without getting a huge bug up their butts.




Back to O'Brien - he bugs me. He and one of his toady not-good-looking field reporters in Florida were camped outside of a Citgo gas station in Florida this morning kabitzing and complaining like two old jewish women. The setting is, there's a line 5 miles around the block waiting to get into the gas station - it's one of the few stations that has power and can pump gas - so naturally it's popular right now since Hurricane Wilma knocked out the power in southern Florida. So O'Brien and said field reporter camped in front of the gas station comment how absurd and unfathomable it is this guy gets to the station fills up his car and actually gets 20 gallons of additional gas (Hoarding O'Brien and toady say) in containers. "Absurd!" They say. "Unconcionable!". "This guy paid over a hundred dollars for gas this morning!" the toady squawks with this unbelieving face.



Uhh... what's so absurd? 20 extra gallons is one more fill-up of your car (approximately). Now if he came in and filled up four 20 gallon containers, or went out and bought one of those tanks you can attach to your pick-up that holds like 60 gallons - yeah, that'd be a little much and he should be slapped around. But 20 extra gallons? Let's see how long that would last in a generator? Ever think he was also getting this gas for his neighbors or is sharing his generator's power with neighbors? Why is this guy the bad guy?

The socialist twist that everyone should provide for everyone and that an extra 20 gallons in this case should be punished is scary. I think Miles needs to be slapped around - report the news bozo! Read the copy and go home you trained baboon. I'll make up my own mind if I think it's "not in good taste" for the guy to get an extra 20 gallons. All those bozo's in line should have stocked up on gas BEFORE the stupid hurricane hit - it's not like it didn't spin over Cancun for 3 friggin days before it hit. It's not like every weather station in the country kept saying "Wilma will eventually move towards Florida" for 3 friggin days. Not enough time for these people to go get a few jerry cans of their own and get some extra gas? Too busy curing cancer were they?

I say good for the guy who brought his cans and filled them up. He was probably in line very early and decided he wants the insurance of a few extra gallons of gas. Shame on them all for not planning ahead. If it were up to me I'd put them out of gas for a week just because they were stupid and didn't plan very well. Serves them right for waiting.

A message for CNN - FNC and their insipid morning show Fox and Friends is still beating the hell out of CNN in the ratings. If FNC decided to actually put some actual news people in front of the camera CNN would be gone in week. As bad as Fox is, more people still prefer it over CNN. So you have to ask youself, why? CNN has better monkey readers, better sets, better backgrounds, prettier people, better music (the list goes on) so why is Fox kicking their keester? It's the slanted comments, injected conversational bits and marked "left" slanted stories that just bug people.

Here's a novel idea. Report the facts, who, what, when and where. Leave the "why" to the magazine and opinion shows. At least you know what you're getting with those. While those lost souls and oblivious people who think CNN is non-biased, you really need to look again and not even closely. EVERY news outlet is biased, NPR, CNN, FNC, BBC (hugely BBC) they are all spewing out their take on what the news story is and not the facts. HINT: Skim out the biased crap and make up your own mind.

Here's some other examples from other blogs and sources:
Newsbusters
This one's good - a game development forum talking about CNN
Gamedev
Arse Poetica