cnn present “inside the (conservative) blogs”
we don’t know if you’ve been watching judy woodruff’s inside politics for the past couple of weeks. if not, we’ll save you the trouble.
judy has begun airing a new segment on her show called “inside the blogs.” during this small 2 minute piece, “blog reporter” jacki schechner and producer abbi tatton sit at two computers and read blogs. that’s right. they sit there and read blogs. out loud.
yes, it’s everything that television was meant to be. it’s almost as entertaining as watching don imus do his radio show.
the very first time “inside the blogs” appeared was february 14 (ahhh…valentines day! this whole thing reminds us of grade school, getting those pity cards from the nice girl in class). howie kurtz actually spoke about blogs, along with “blog reporter” jacki schechner, and there was no designation of “inside the blogs.” getting an offical title didn’t happen until february 16. abbi tatton didn’t start making a regular appearance until the next day, feb. 17.
aside from being even more static and ponderous than the usual screeching head segment, the approach of “inside the blogs” leaves two things to be desired. first of all, they never mention us (which is puzzling, considering how much their colleague daryn kagan loves us, even if she misquotes us).
but mainly, and, hold on to your seats now, because we’re sure that the following will come as a shock to you, but during the past 15 days, “inside the blogs” has mentioned, quoted, or otherwise referenced literally twice as many conservative blogs as liberal blogs. and that’s with the widest possible definition of ‘liberal’ we can use with a straight face. let’s look at the facts:
[ed. note: unfortunately for us, ‘looking at the facts’ means looking at the transcripts, which often put us at a disadvantage. where we could sometimes discern what those cnn transcribers were trying to say, such as “daily kos” for “daily cause,” we were downright stuck at some sentences, as for instance, when asked how they picked the blogs they looked at, jacki replied “we go to (unintelligible) which tops the links.” we’re not sure what the url of (unintelligble) is.]
our interns poured through the transcripts of inside politics and documented every mention of every blog during this new segment since feb. 14, and the results are clear:
- mentions of conservative blogs: 54
- mentions of liberal blogs: 29
to even count that many liberal occurences, we have to cut cnn some wide slack on definitions. here are our parameters:
jacki has labeled andrew sullivan as “centrist” (march 1). sorry, but we steadfastly count sully as a con.
jacki calls jeff jarvis’s buzz machine as liberal (feb. 28). so does jeff himself. in our opinion, anyone that reads instapundit on an hourly basis, and has more conservative than liberal links on their blogroll is suspect when they wear the “lefty” tag, but for the sake of as much balance as we can squeeze out of this exercise, we’ll call buzz machine a lefty site.
we have to assume that jacki’s mention of the “brad log” is a reference to brad de long’s site, an obviously liberal blog, and the “columbia journal review” is the blog “campaign desk” at cjr’s site . we also count jay rosen’s press think as liberal, though jay is more concerned with how the media operates than political agenda.
we also spot jacki and abbi wonkette on the liberal side, though the only thing liberal about ana marie is her doses of snark.
to be honest, “inside the blogs” have mentioned three aggregator blogs, which we count as neither right nor left, and our blog buddy joe gandelman’s moderate voice, which we count as, well, moderate. there were also four blogs we either never heard of or couldn’t find, so we didn’t include them in the mix.
still, with 6 references each of captains quarters and vodka pundit, 4 mentions of instapundit and whizbang, the calling of little green footballs as one of the “blogstars” and the powerline blog as a “very important blog” ( feb. 17), it seems that the conservative total of 54 far outpaces the measly 29 mentions of the liberal sites. granted, dkos got referenced a whopping 8 times, but that leaves a sorry 21 times for all the other liberals (including wonkette, jay rosen and jeff jarvis). one mention of atrios! none whatsoever of tom tomorrow, jeralyn merritt, eric alterman, jerome armstrong, max sawicky, annatopia, billmon, david neiwert, nathan newman, jeanne d’arc, dave johnson, or the gang at tapped or first draft or corrente. or even skippy!
but, what are we surprised at? that cnn gives twice as much time to conservatives as liberals? please. what were we expecting?
journalism?
addendum: reader matt foulger kindly points out that there is a “brad blog,” which, as the cnn transcribers wrote as “brad log,” we took to incorrectly mean “brad de long’s blog.” however, matt says, brad blog is still on the left, so it didn’t really change the thesis.
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:41 am
CNN is on the long road down hill. They spend so much time trying to appeal to conservatives, but do so in such a half-assed wishy-washy way that tries to mask it. I hate Fox News, but give them credit. They know their audience, and they try to target and broadcast to it. CNN is trying to be something it is not, while broadcasting in a way inconsistent with what it is.
A pioneer in 24 hour news, for sure, but desperate for some good management.
Russ
Legal MemoRandom
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:53 am
I may not be the “url of (unintelligible)”, but I am the “duke.”
March 3rd, 2005 at 10:56 am
Russ, judging from the recent ratings, I’d have to say they DON’T know their audience.
Hacks and whores, the lot of them. Jealous, petty, two bit, lousy, ho’s.
They don’t need good management, they need a broom, with hard steel bristles, lye, and lots of other disinfectants.
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:00 am
You sure when she said the ‘brad log’ she wasn’t referring to BradBlog? http://www.bradblog.com/
He’s also on the left, so the numbers would remain unchanged.
I actually visited CNN’s New York offices on Monday as part of a Media and Public Policy class. We talked to the Bureau Chief as well as Aaron Brown, and both were very interesting and polite. They both talked about the respect they had for Fox (knowing their audience, etc), but did not hide their opinions on Fox’s ‘reporting’. Aaron compared Fox to professional wrestling before it admitted it was fake and called itself “sports entertainment”. Seemed like a good analogy to me. But these people just dont GET IT. The bureau chief in particular seemed to be saying that since news broadcasting was a business, and now a very competitive one, they had an excuse to air crap like Showbiz today twice a night on HNN. Aaron Brown has done a good job ignoring the crappy Laci Peterson style stories, but he and the rest of CNN still need to cut through the crap and tell it like it is. They need to stop bending over backwards to avoid looking ‘biased’ and realize the wingers will froth at the mouth no matter what. It was sad to tour CNN’s beautiful offices and think about how such a promising news organization could decline so far.
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:11 am
I think I posted this here a few weeks ago, but if CNN REALLY wanted to jumpstart their ratings, they’d become the “Air America” of cable news. The anti-Fox.
You know how many dispirited and pissed off liberals and Democrats would FLOOD to their station?
I liken Cable news ratings to the the unemployment rate. Sometimes the rate goes down, because longterm unemployed people just get tired of looking for work and withdraw from the worforce.
That’s what is happening to liberals and Deomocrats. We can’t stand watching TV news anymore. It’s nothig but Bush butt kissing, and conservative pandering. Especially the cable networks.
And they wonder why the TV news audience leans conservative!
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:24 am
darrelplant, I know Raoul Duke, and you are no Duke. Keep trying, though.
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:26 am
I send an email to Judy Woodruff on Feb. 28 asking her to include centrist blogs, and including a link to this aggregator:
http://kinja.com/user/centrist
She sent a nice note back, and the segment mentioned Joe Gandelman the next day.
By the way, I also mentioned in my note that she may have misidentified Jeff Jarvis as a liberal. Jeff insists he is a liberal, but I think he’s to the right of my centrism. I don’t think it’s a question of disingenuousness but rather a sentimental attachment to a label which used to apply to him.
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:28 am
In terms of marketing to a liberal niche, isn’t that something Gore & partners are going to pursue? Or has that run aground?
When you talked about the medium aspect of people reading off computer screens on television, I couldn’t help but recall my tape of A&E’s replay of NBC’s coverage of JFK’s assassination. There’s a point where Robert MacNeil phones in a report from Dallas, and they can’t patch his call in, so they hold the phone up to a microphone; the television cameras of course show a telephone receiver next to a mike. Precious!
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:29 am
Re: Hesiod’s comment - Right on brother! I used to watch Crossfire when it had some semblance of actual balance and was an hour long. By making it a half-an-hour, they effectively neutered the program. That is the last time I made a conscious effort to tune into CNN at any time at all. Once in a while I channel surf through but I can’t stand any of them and my reviewing of the blogs show that they are as hacktacular as ever.
I guess MSNBC likes to call Olbermann “liberal” for “balance” but his show is full of cute little funny items like he used to do on SportsCenter, irreverent and also irrelevant.
In re-reading David Brock’s The Republican Noise Machine, the Section on CNN makes it pretty clear that CNN was never really liberal by any stretch of the imagination at any time; just because Rush and friends say it is the Clinton News Network doesn’t make it so.
Slightly OT, I thought Al Gore bought that Canadian Channel (I think it’s called Network News International or something) I get it on Directv but it still the same with Canadian news. Does any one know what became of that?
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:49 am
Given the general suckiness of this show advocating for balance may be a waste of time.
Would Talking Points Memo deserve a spot?
March 3rd, 2005 at 11:53 am
The problem with your argument, Hesiod, is that if ratings were important, MSNBC would have kept Phil Donahue (who had the highest ratings on the news feature part of that channel at the time he was dropped, about 2.1+ IIRC) and dropped Matthews, Scarborough, and the rest of the hacks who had and continue to have ratings about 0.5+.
I really don’t know what principle MSGOP and CNN are operating under these days, as they try to ape Faux and watch their ratings continue to fall. What advertisers are going to be attracted by lower ratings? I assume their constant response has been to cut costs by substituting ideological talking heads for genuine reporters and news bureaus, but at what point do they say “we need to find an audience for this crap, so maybe we need a different kind of crap”? Or are they making their money through some kind of under-the-table corporate payoffs that make up for diminishing ad revenue? Or are the advertisers they get happy to pay them for the ideological crap and indifferent to the non-existent viewership (because the viewers who want that stuff watch Faux anyway)?
What the heck is the business model for those places?
March 3rd, 2005 at 12:04 pm
Yesterday evening, MS-GOP’s news show Coast to Coast (Ron Reagan Jr. and Monica whatshername) featured women bloggers.
The lady bloggers?
LaShawn Barber (lashawnbarber.com) and Robin Burk (windsofchange.net). Was it KKK Moms night on MS-GOP yesterday evening?
March 3rd, 2005 at 12:39 pm
What the heck is the business model for those places?
I suspect their payoff is through their parent company. Since this is one of the most pro-business administrations, as long as they continue to toe the party line, every handout the parent gets from Bush trickles down to the news corp.
March 3rd, 2005 at 1:08 pm
No mention of tom tomorrow is sort of expected, as tom’s taking a break from blogging for a couple weeks. Still doesn’t excuse ONE measly mention of Eschaton.
March 3rd, 2005 at 2:07 pm
It’s OK. At this point the LAST thing I want is to be mentioned on air by the skanky broadcast hos at CNN.
March 3rd, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Thanks Matt and Skippy for pointing out that Inside Politics was probably referring to The BRAD BLOG (http://www.BradBlog.com)
I’d love to see the transcript on that item where she mentioned us, but have had no luck at CNN. If anyone knows which transcript/link that is, I’d appreciate it! Please Email TheBradBlog@cville.com if you’d be so kind!
Brad
March 3rd, 2005 at 6:24 pm
Could you list the four that remain unidentified? Open source the blog finding.
And are you sure the transcript got the comment about the Little Green Raelians incorrect? Not blogstars… Red Guards in the Great CONservative Cultural Revolution.
And isn’t Wizbang the guys that had legal action taken against them and forced to remove some posts due to libel and harassment? I remember Orcinus’ posts when the harassment of the professor started.
March 3rd, 2005 at 8:27 pm
Could all the people who voted against Bush last election get together and donate x amount of dollars and buy out CNN so we could fire Wolfie, judy, and first of all, Paula Zahn?
March 3rd, 2005 at 9:00 pm
tom, all my info is directly from the transcripts. yes, the transcripts called lgf “blogstars.” for the record (and this is on my other post titled “my letter to judy woodruff”) the 4 unknown (to me) blogs were: the hotline, mid east climate change, dr. zhibloggo and political garbage.
March 4th, 2005 at 3:40 am
I wonder if Judy will read from THIS blog.
March 4th, 2005 at 5:00 am
CNN considers Mein Kampf to be a liberal screed. It has something to do with news anchors gaining huge tax cuts from Bush. Greed is a theology that depends on faith in the invisible occurrence. Ask any carny or harlot.
March 4th, 2005 at 6:09 am
Mein Kampf… probably the work of some Demo-nazi… (it’s a matter of time before that charming phrase becomes commonplace… you saw it here first folks.
For the millionth time, Bill Clinton is not, and was not, our savior.. Say it with me, please. One stat– just ONE STAT explains all. The minimum wage was $4.75 in 1993. It was raised to $5.15 in 1994. After 8 years of peace and prosperity, ITS STILL GOD DAMNED $5.15 an hour.
Why do I say this? Because working Americans are going nowhere: they’re wages go nowhere, so they must work more hours to keep up, and really DON’T HAVE TIME FOR SENSIBLE DISCUSSIONS OF THE NEWS.
We are stressed, man. STRESSED. THEY understand this. They’re the ones championing the fucking of the working man and woman. They want the minimum wage rolled back to whatever the Chinese are paying.
BUT– at the same time they f*** over the working man and woman, they dangle to the working man the dream of becoming rich (and f***ing over OTHER working men and women). And they do so outrageously. And THE S*** SELLS.
And we STILL in our upper west side coffee shops ponder over our lattes while looking at our blackberries why BORING, EVEN-HANDED ACCURATE REPORTING IS GOING F***ING NOWHERE!!!
WELL STOP WONDERING!!!
March 4th, 2005 at 9:03 am
color me crazy, but i wonder if cnn is just bending over backwards to “not appear liberal”.
but i do agree with the gist of this post - cnn’s inside the blogs segments have been decidedly slanted. with all due respect to the work being done on the “right” side of the blogosphere, there is soooo much outstanding work being done on the left and i wish that cnn would do a better job of presenting the entire picture. what they’re giving their audience right now is a very narrow view of what’s being discussed on the blogs.
March 4th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
The only time I watch CNN is at the airport, and that’s only by accident….
The irrelevant crap they promote as “news” — astounding. They’re so cute with their little keyboards, reading the blogs. Who knows how they find them…
DemocracyNow! for me….
March 18th, 2005 at 1:36 pm
Of blogs and blogettes
Steven Levy’s recent MSNBC article