Board Member Lauds Fox News - He Wants CNN to Evolve ‘Back to Actual Journalism’

[Cow Poke]

Discovery Board Member John Malone Lauds Fox News Before Saying He Wants CNN to Evolve ‘Back to Actual Journalism’

John Malone appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box Thursday morning and revealed that he is eager to see CNN return to “the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists.”

Malone isn’t some run-of-the-mill media baron either. He’s a member of the board of Discovery Inc., in addition to being the longtime chairman of Liberty Media, and a long-time cable news pioneer.

As the leading shareholder in Discovery and reportedly a chief architect in the merger of Discovery and CNN, his comments about the role that a news network would play in a future streaming world merit significant attention.

CNBC Anchor David Faber asked Malone if there is any place for news in a streaming network, admitting that he didn’t know if CNN would be a “value add or not” to the potentially merged media behemoth.

Malone replied in a self-effacing way, admitting that he could be “partially blamed for the creation of a lot of news networks,” including CNBC. It’s not clear why he feels like there needs to be any blame. He then answered a question clearly about his vision for how CNN will work in a merged company, by first lauding top-rated competitor, Fox News.

“Fox News, in my opinion, has followed an interesting trajectory of trying to have news news, I mean some actual journalism, embedded in a program schedule of all opinions,” Malone replied. “And I think they’ve been relatively successful with a service like Bret Baier, and Brit Hume before him, that try to distinguish news from opinion.”

“I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” he continued, which can only be viewed as a bad omen for the journalists currently under CNN’s employ.

“I do believe good journalism could have a role in this future portfolio that Discovery-TimeWarner’s going to represent,” he added after but is not included in the clip excerpted above.

[NorrinRadd]

I consider Shannon Bream to be similar to Bret Baier -- much more journalist than analyst / opinion-giver. Brit Hume was straight journalist when he was moderator or anchor, but clearly conservative when he was an analyst on a panel. I've never seen anyone be able to flip that switch so finely.

Shep Smith always fancied himself an objective journalist, and looked down on the opinion division at FNC as "entertainment." The thing was, he was clearly NOT objective. His bias was always clear in his choice of guests, his smirks, his eye-rolls... Good riddance to that fool.

[Cow Poke]

It will be interesting to see if anything actually changes at CNN. I think this isn't the first time they claimed they were going to get back to "serious journalism".

And back in May, it was already noted how far they got into opinion rather than news.

The new CNN is more opinionated and emotional. Can it still be ‘the most trusted name in news’?

As the first presidential debate of the 2020 general election came to a close last fall, CNN’s top anchors and political correspondents stepped up to offer their seasoned perspective and analysis.

“That,” said anchor Jake Tapper, “was a hot mess, inside a dumpster fire, inside a train wreck.” But political correspondent Dana Bash insisted on cutting to the chase.
“You used some high-minded language,” she parried. “I’m just going to say it like it is: That was a s--- show.”

In fairness, the chaotic Sept. 29 debate left a lot of journalists sputtering for words, as Donald Trump relentlessly interrupted both Joe Biden and moderator Chris Wallace. But Bash and Tapper’s casually vivid language highlighted the dramatic tonal transformation of a once-staid network over the past decade.

"I can't imagine that being accepted in 2001," said former CNN anchor Carol Costello, who speculated that Bash might have faced internal discipline in an earlier era. But, she added, "It was what anybody was thinking, so it wasn't wrong to say that."

Welcome to the new CNN, where journalists and anchors, traditionally restricted by industry-wide standards of impartiality, have been given the green light under network President Jeff Zucker to say what they actually want to say — even if it strikes some as opinionated.

“One of the things that I’ve tried to encourage is authenticity and being real,” Zucker said. “If we pretend not to be human, it’s not real.”

These days, it’s not uncommon for CNN personalities to cry on air. In March, anchor Brianna Keilar got tearful during a segment about a mass shooting at a grocery store in Colorado. And after correspondent Sara Sidner apologized for getting choked up during a January report about pandemic deaths (“It’s really hard to take,” she sighed), the boss called to reassure her.

“What I told her was, ‘Don’t ever apologize like that again,’ ” Zucker recounted. “She was just being real. She’s a human being. She was expressing an emotion that probably many people in the audience were feeling. And I’m totally comfortable with that happening on television. What people react to is authenticity and reality.”

Yet to some ears, and during some stories, CNN’s new emotional rawness can sound like bias at a network that built its reputation on studiously neutral impartiality. “For tens of millions of our fellow Americans,” Tapper intoned after CNN called the election for Biden, “their long, national nightmare is over.” Awaiting the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial last month, host Don Lemon confessed that “I’m anxious about it. . . . We shall see what the value of a Black life is.” When the Minneapolis police officer was convicted in the death of George Floyd, Lemon proclaimed, “justice has been served.”

[Sparko]

CNN became mainstream back when they covered the invasion of Kuwait and Desert Storm. I remember watching them all day long. They did actual journalism then. How things have changed. That was also back when MTV actually showed music videos too.

[Cow Poke]

CNN became mainstream back when they covered the invasion of Kuwait and Desert Storm. I remember watching them all day long. They did actual journalism then. How things have changed. That was also back when MTV actually showed music videos too.

They tried, but they were at a total loss as to military equipment and tactics. They had to work hard to get up to speed.

But, yeah, they weren't outright lying or trying craft a narrative.