Michael Moore's CNN Diatribe Reveals A Lot About TV News
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- If it's Tuesday, somebody must be ripping CNN.
The latest broadside attack came from Michael Moore, whose latest movie "Sicko" is about the messed-up health-care system in the United States. Moore's diatribe also opens a window on the state of CNN and TV news in general these days.
CNN, remember, made its reputation by covering Desert Storm in 1991 more comprehensively than the major networks. Its timely and daring reporting showed that there was a world beyond the confines of CBS , NBC and ABC .
Lately, CNN has stretched the definition of news to a nearly incomprehensible level. What has genuine news value and what is a thinly veiled ratings grab? CNN may have plenty of company here, but I expect a lot from this network.
That's because of the background and commitment of its U.S. news chief, Jon Klein, to delivering hard news. CNN has many respected news professionals and the network does lots of great work, but sometimes what I see leaves me confounded.
I'm holding Klein at his words. In a column last August, I quoted him as saying that CNN was all about "journalistic excellence."
(Klein also told me that morning anchor Soledad O'Brien was "blowing the doors down." That endorsement, of course, came several months before Klein replaced her with Kiran Chetry, a refugee from "Fox and Friends." OK -- things change in TV news.)
CNN's pursuit of "journalistic excellence" had nothing to do with panting after the first interview with jailbird Paris Hilton on "Larry King Live." It had nothing to do with Larry King's clumsy, to put it kindly, interview with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr.
That chat with the two living ex-Beatles was little more than an excuse for them to promote "Love," the Las Vegas stage show and soundtrack disc that exploits the band's music catalog.
CNN isn't alone in pandering to promotions and celebrities. The morning-news shows, in particular, are filled with blather from shills offering advice for every conceivable ailment. There's lots of celebrity trivia and gossip, not to mention recipes.
If these shows feature news after someone reads the headlines, it's almost an accident -- or an inconvenience, for the networks. CNN is better than most at focusing on breaking stories, but it falls down on the job sometimes, too.
Moore or less
Take what happened with Moore. "The always-outspoken filmmaker" is how the lazy media invariably describe him, though I prefer Gawker's handle of "the blustery Bolshevik."
Moore's furious that the mainstream media haven't done enough reporting on health-care inequities.
Indeed he's right, but it looks like he took a cheap shot by alluding that the media's neglect was the fault of CNN and "The Situation Room" anchor Wolf Blitzer.
Poor Wolf. Fresh off the bad press he got for gushing over Anna Nicole Smith earlier this year, he bore the brunt of Moore's barbs. Sure, Blitzer demonstrates a knack for shooting himself in the foot when he hypes segments like this: "Michael Moore uncensored and in full force. This is an interview you don't want to miss."
Blitzer can be witty and wry in ways that viewers don't see on CNN. I remember a story he told some journalists at a table during the 2004 Republican convention in New York. He was talking about how tough it was to cover President Clinton.
On one occasion, it seemed, Clinton diverted a plane bound for Europe to attend a fund-raiser in Tennessee. Blitzer joked that he was tempted to begin his CNN standup by saying, "Greetings from Nashville, the gateway to the Balkans!"
Line by line
The following appears, courtesy of the transcript provided by CNN.com:
Blitzer: "Give us a couple of headlines, what you'd like to say."Moore: "I don't talk in sound bites. So -- that report was so biased. I can't imagine what pharmaceutical company ad's coming up right after our brek here. But why don't you tell the truth to the American people? I mean, I wish that CNN and the other mainstream media would just for once tell the truth about what's going on in this country, whether it's with health care ... I don't care what it is. I mean, you guys have such a poor track record."
Maybe Blitzer took the expedient route with Moore; maybe he misspoke. Maybe Moore caught him off guard and he momentarily panicked.
Still, when Blitzer said "give us a couple of headlines," he showed that he needed Moore to say something controversial, so CNN could use it on a promo.
I think that revealed plenty about the current mind-set of CNN. I wish it didn't.
MEDIA WEB QUESTION OF THE DAY: What do you like or dislike about CNN?
MONDAY REPORT CARD: The media still haven't given us the inside story on Sen. John McCain's worsening 2008 presidential prospects. Think about it. McCain has been the favorite to snare the Republican nomination since ... 2000. Yet everything has gone wrong. Is it merely that McCain has hitched his fortunes to the absolute worst cause -- Iraq? Or is it something deeper that has caused him to crumble months before New Hampshire? I wish I knew.
THE READERS RESPOND: "The New Yorker is trying to appeal to a national audience, and I don't think New York is at this point. I know here in balmy Minneapolis the New Yorker is much more widely read." Jim Crue
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By Jon Friedman