CNN and other U.S. news outlets

Since around 2006, I have pretty much not watched U.S. news channels. For a bit, I would watch Good morning America on ABC or The Today Show on NBC, but there has been a significant decline in the amount of local news channels that I watch for news and almost a complete stop to the national news programs. For local news (and I pretty much only would watch in the morning anyways) - the best in the DC area is probably Fox 5 and Channel 7/8 (ABC). Both focus on local news and have lots of local news stories, events and weather/traffic. They are pretty upbeat and keep the focus on our area, which is good for me in the morning. Things seem less 'right' or 'left' when they do that sort of thing.

But, our national news has gotten ridiculous. In high school, I used to prefer CNN above other 24 hour news stations because, well - they actually would have 24 hour news going on. Early in this decade, they changed to more of a Fox News set up where they would have more 'talk shows' and opinion pieces. And then, the Israel/Hezbollah conflict started in 2006. That was the turning point for me with CNN. It was very frustrating to watch the news and see how uncomfortable the news casters and reporters were to have to ask questions in their interviews that were so obviously going for a particular point. The interviewee would be looking at the reporter like they were crazy, answer the question and then get usually frustrated or mad when the reporter would ask another question (obviously from a pre-set list) that either asked what the person just replied about or they wouldn't ask something off what the person just said to make the interview better. They were just asking these lists of questions that were almost irrelevant to the interviewee or the situation. It's one thing to show a particular viewpoint from the station heads - it's another to engage in bad journalism in accomplish that.

I really feel like we are going down the road of yellow journalism. Ratings matter and, of course, in the age of 24 hours/ 7 days a week news outlets, they must come up with shows to fill the time in between legitimate news. But, now the shows have become the focus. I liked CNN over mainstream morning shows because they would do news and only news... none of the interview fluff that the other shows do. Now, they only have the shows and try to be like the fluffy morning shows. And so we (the public) don't get hard facts... just opinions. And there often are not a good balance between opinions. I am pretty darn liberal, but I don't need to always hear a liberal point of view. If you always hear what you like, then you have a very skewed and flawed view of the world, which doesn't help you, your community or your country at all. You need to see what others say and if your argument can hold up - great! Otherwise, perhaps you need to do more research into your own options on a topic.

So, how do I get my news? First, I listen to NPR (WAMU in the DC area) every day to and from work. I love NPR. I do think they are a bit liberal, but they are careful to bring in different points of view and point out to listeners if they are, as a station, saying one point of view over another (ie, I have heard them say things like the NPR board members have said this or done this and so you may think this report is biased). I think their programming is great - not just the news in the morning and evening, but also during the day like the Diane Rehm show - great panel discussions!!

Second, I have the BBC and Washington Post webpages up during the day. I am still fine with pretty much all U.S. print media. Why? Because they take their time to research things and have to really back up their articles. There is more time put into articles and therefore the reporters are held pretty much to a higher standard. (other papers I will follow in the U.S. include SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle) and the New York Times (even though they got bought out :P)

I also get emails from Haartez, New York Times, and the Washington Post. I will occasionally check out Al Jazeera, although I honestly prefer their newscasts over their webpage. The BBC I usually prefer the online over the newscasts - I'm not sure why...

Finally - I get a bit annoyed at the difference in style between CNN in the U.S. and CNN International. CNN International is what I want CNN U.S. to be - good coverage, actual news coverage, and good reporters. I will watch CNN when I'm abroad, but just can't stand to watch it here...

So, why this post on news in the U.S. now? Well, today, CNN (ok - I heard it on NPR) announced that Lou Dobbs is leaving their network. While I never watched this guy, I heard plenty about him as he was the one who for about 6 months was arguing that Obama was not born a U.S. citizen. Even after irrefutable evidence was out there and CNN ran stories showing that, he still would insist that there was not evidence to show that Obama was born in the U.S. I am hopeful that CNN has realized that their strength was in good reporting and news stories... and that they will go back to good news and not this crappy fluff that I really don't need.