A depressing look Helen Phillips, a former CNN reporter, at how the station's increasingly depserate and frenzied pursuit of the highest possible ratings at every posibble minute - ie from every show or segment - is undermining the quality of CNN's output. A key problem is that reporters may actually work for CNN International, which of course is charge with presenting a broader, but the mony comes from CNN USA, and CNNI journalists find that they can't get stories approved unless those stories are palatable to American audiences - or are the types of stories that news heads feel will be compatible to them. For instance, when reporting on the Afghan War, 'CNN's then-Chairman Walter Isaacson wrote a memo to all international
reporters in which he said it "seems perverse to focus too much
on the casualties or hardship in Afghanistan." The memo said
that all reports about Afghan casualties must be qualified with information
about "how the Taliban are using civilian shields and how the
Taliban have harbored the terrorists responsible for killing close
to 5,000 innocent people." '
Phillips also writes that:
The people who run CNN International made serious and concerted efforts
to provide more balanced, less flag-waving coverage of the Iraq war
for international viewers. They worked hard to provide an international
perspective through non-American anchors, reporters and analysts.
But CNNI did not have full control over its content: the bulk of newsgathering
budget money was prioritized for reports aimed at the CNN USA audience,
and many major breaking news events were "simulcast" across
all CNN networks. The most dramatic reporting came from "star"
correspondents embedded on the front lines, and these reporters did
not have time to do two versions of their stories -- one for Americans
and one for international viewers. Furthermore, it had become very
clear to correspondents by then that the key to their future career
success was closely tied to the extent to which their reporting "played
well" on CNN USA. Therefore it was the U.S. audience -- not the
international one -- that most frontline reporters were primarily
speaking to in their reports.
After the fall of Baghdad, I know of one very specific case in which
a CNN correspondent told me he had received "negative feedback"
from management in Atlanta after he filed a report describing the
postwar situation in Baghdad as "a mess." "I think
the press self-muzzled," said CNN's own Christiane Amanpour on
a TV talk show in September of that year. "I'm sorry to say,
but certainly television and, perhaps, to a certain extent, my station
was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox
News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship,
in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did."
What seems to have happened is that, with Fox, viewers can now get a hyper-American form of the news, where nothing's our fault and everything we do is right. And they'd rather see that than a more honest, nuanced approach. It ain't good: American TV viewers find themselves caught in an echo chamber, a sort of self-perpetuating media loop resistant to self-scrutiny or self-criticism. THere is now a marketplace for patriotism, and if one channel raises uncomfortable questions, the consumer can opt for one that doesn't - one that instead dishes out patirotism on demand.
It's apparently much the same in Japan:
This is the case for viewers everywhere -- be they American, Middle
Eastern, South African, or Japanese. Based on my interactions with
Japanese commercial broadcasters, I know that they are under the same
kind of budget pressures and competitive pressures to boost viewership
ratings as American broadcasters are. As a result, international news
reports focus on what producers believe will keep Japanese audiences
watching -- which means that like in the U.S., many of the important
but "boring" or complicated stories get passed over. Of
course, public broadcaster NHK has a different mandate which includes
extensive international news coverage. However I have been told by
several reporters at NHK that they frequently encounter situations
in which producers and assignment editors have been unwilling to contradict
majority public opinion or sentiment in Japan. This has been particularly
true on stories related to North Korea and to the Japanese citizens
who were taken hostage in Iraq earlier this year.
Japanese audiences also have access to international channels through
cable services and satellite dishes. Both CNN and the BBC are easily
available. Interestingly, however, the version of CNN distributed
in Japan by its local distribution partner, JCTV, is a hybrid service
called CNNj which runs CNN USA programming during prime time morning
and evening hours. The CNNj service has been in effect since the spring
of 2003 and is the result of market research by JCTV that showed that
Japanese audiences prefer to see the American rather than the International
version of CNN. Thus CNNj was created in order to boost subscriptions
and advertising revenue. As a result, the CNN available to Japanese
viewers during prime time hours gives them the American perspective
on a lot of U.S. news and a small number of world events, while the
more international perspective of CNNI is only available to viewers
who watch at odd hours, in the middle of the afternoon or very late
at night.
Before we leap to moral judgments or condemnations, we must be realistic.
In truth, it is unrealistic to expect commercially-driven TV news
companies to do anything other than to seek profit maximization --
while at the same time selling a product that can still be defined
as "news" in some way. The search for profit maximization
means that these companies will shape their news to fit the tastes
and values of the majority of their most lucrative potential audience.
Citizens of democracies who want to be well informed must understand
this. They cannot expect to be passive consumers of whatever news
comes their way from a name-brand news source. They must question,
contrast, and compare. They must demand better quality information.
This is why the BBC should stay public.
Another intesting quote comes here:
At the time, Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism
provided this analysis to the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz:
"It sounds as though they're worried about people being mad at
them more than about providing the information that is useful."6
From where I stood, that is definitely how it looked: CNN management
wanted to avoid offending American viewers who were still deeply traumatized
and angry about the September 11th terrorist attacks, and that avoiding
offense was more important than our duty to report all the facts.
But when Rosenstiel spoke of concern for making "people mad,"
the only people who really seemed to count were Americans. I detected
little concern by top management for whether the memo might offend
international audiences.
Somehow, it seems that the US has slipped into self-pity, some type of hyper-defensive mode, wherein any criticism of it is seen as attack. This attitude has of course been led by conservatives, who are usually the first to decry - and loudly - the culture of self-pity, of wallowing in pain, of expecting special circumstances and treatment. No more. Sigh.
If only the Dems would start framing this now, start pointing out to people that conservatives expect special protections for so many things.
