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Turner: CNN Focuses Too Much on Perverts
 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 2005-06-02 |
