CBS and CNN Could Be Making News Together 124
crimeandpunishment writes "More proof of the profound impact cable, the Internet, and other outlets have had on broadcast news organizations. CBS and CNN, who have danced around the idea of a partnership for years, may be ready to move forward. Both news organizations have a lot at stake. Broadcast network news has a gloomy financial outlook, and CNN's ratings need a jump-start."
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CBS cares.
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CNN used to care. I remember when it was THE source for information about the first Gulf war. It was a serious station with a great format. These days, whenever I see CNN on TV somewhere it looks like what happens when a reality TV show gets knocked up by an infomercial.
Just what they need (Score:5, Funny)
Larry King guest starring on 60 Minutes.
No Thanks. I'll keep my dial set to the hotties and relevant commentators on FoxNews.
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Anderson Cooper is Ghey??????
I had no idea, He always seemed like such a nice straight boy, the kind who would date a girl for several score before proposing to her under duress from his parents.
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It wasn't the media's job to be equally positive or negative to both candidates in the 2008 election. It was the media's job to report what actually happened, even if that means one candidate is making a good impression and the other is not. Obama ran a better campaign than McCain, McCain's running mate was as thick as two short planks, and that's what the media reported (with the exception of one network). Oh BTW, how does health care reform, lifting bans on stem cell research, re-setting NASA's priorities
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News (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe CNN could start reporting actual news instead of relying on their viewers to tweet "interesting" information about the latest celebrity breakups so they can read it out on air.
Re:News (Score:5, Funny)
Pwnface69: Obama is gr8 n I think it we have a black president
"That's a good point. Good input. Let's bring up an opposing view."
RedNeckBeck72: oblama blew up the rig himself and acorn for the stopping drilling cus global warming scam
BushLiedKidsDied: it was bush fault lobbyists and haliburton made backdoor deals
"Quite a diverse array of opinions we have here. Next up, what is the Achilles' Heel of elephants? The answer may surprise you. Stay tuned."
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"And we're back. I'm Anderson Cooper, and this is AC 360. Before the break we asked our viewers what they thought of the Obama administration's response to the oil disaster."
Pwnface69: Obama is gr8 n I think it we have a black president
"That's a good point. Good input. Let's bring up an opposing view."
RedNeckBeck72: oblama blew up the rig himself and acorn for the stopping drilling cus global warming scam
BushLiedKidsDied: it was bush fault lobbyists and haliburton made backdoor deals
"Quite a diverse array of opinions we have here. Next up, what is the Achilles' Heel of elephants? The answer may surprise you. Stay tuned."
Quite. There is one upside though, it gives Jon Stewart plenty of material, and makes it possible to watch The Daily Show without having to sit through so much footage from Fox News.
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When you primarily limit yourselves to news stories that occur within the US it makes it that much more difficult to fill 24 hours with actual news.
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There is a lot of news that happends in the United States that can make a good 24 hour plan. However the fact is that CNN is trying to get the most audence. So they are filling it with entertainment flufff. And the meaningless comentaries that just get people routing for them or going online to critize them.
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CNN has a sister station called CNNi which focuses on international news stories. Sadly, most of the American public is more concerned about Tiger Woods nailing a Perkins waitress than whether or not genocide is occuring in Kenya.
My concern is that CNN used to be the one network I trusted. They showed both sides. They seperated headline/news shows from opinion shows. I saw a story during the 1996 Olympics where CNN (owned by Ted Turner) ratted out their boss for rounding up homeless and forcibly removing th
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However, CNN fell to third in ratings behind MSNBC and Fox News, proving that the American public prefer to be spoon-fed biased opinion shows that they know they'll agree with.
I'm sure that's part of it, but speaking for myself I stopped watching CNN because they replaced hard news coverage with gimmicks like iReport, floating pie charts and Star Wars holonet knock offs.
The only serious American television newscast that's left is the PBS Newshour.
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This is a huge misunderstanding of what the hell the 24 hour news cycle means.
news organizations really need to fill about 8 to 10 hours of news programming and the rest is taken up by commentary(or in MSNBC's case, commentary and ZOMG PRISON)
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What's also annoying to me is how their Headline News channel seem to be increasingly populated by talk shows.
FWIW - Fox had Rupert Murdoch on the other day as a commentator on the dufus car bombing incident. As if *HE* were some sort of expert on terrorism.
Of course all he did was mouth the same old fear-mongering bullshit, but I have yet to see CNN interview Ted Turner for his expert opinion on anything - gossip or otherwise.
Re:News (Score:4, Interesting)
isn't causing fear and panic among large swaths of the population in order to affect a political outcome the definition of terrorism? If so, his expert opinion may actually be pretty valid. Just saying.
Re:News (Score:5, Interesting)
***Maybe CNN could start reporting actual news***
Is there anyone there who knows how to do that? It's a little hard to envision any of the CNN "reporters" pulling a Mika Brzezinski and refusing to read the latest pop-culture garbage.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1556022/Paris-Hilton-script-screwed-up-burnt-and-shredded.html [telegraph.co.uk]
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Mod Parent/GP UP!
We have CNN in our cafeteria at work, and it sickens me to see nothing but "entertainment news". I really don't give a shit what Paris, Lindsey, Madonna, Brad, J-Lo, and the rest of them had for breakfast.
Until one of these "news" organizations gets it, I'll be reading mine online.
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Keith Olbermann quit MSNBC in the 90's over the Lewinski scandal(yes, to return to MSNBC with Countdown)
But this is why I honestly watch MSNBC. If it's the inverse of Fox, it's not because of political biases, it's over the control they exert on their on air talent(Seriously, if MSNBC had a liberal bias, they would've drawn and quartered michael savage instead of you know, giving him a show).
No one else on cable news covered The Family, the secretive religious organization that's got it's roots deep everyw
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Fox News has Alan Colmes, Juan Williams, and Geraldo Rivera-- just off the top of my head. O'Reilly has regular correspondents on his show who are left-of-center, but I don't watch that often. So does this mean Fox News isn't biased?
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If? If?
LOL..oh c'mon, it is freakin' obvious they ARE the anti-Fox news. Look at that Ed show, and Oblermann, good Lord, I think I've actually witnessed him spitting saliva while looking bug-eyed going on some of his rants against the right, and even against what I'd consider the middle. If it ain't positive about Obama, he can get absolutely livid. I've not actually seen that level of vitriol come out of the biggest right winger on F
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LOL..oh c'mon, it is freakin' obvious they ARE the anti-Fox news. Look at that Ed show, and Oblermann, good Lord, I think I've actually witnessed him spitting saliva while looking bug-eyed going on some of his rants against the right, and even against what I'd consider the middle. If it ain't positive about Obama, he can get absolutely livid. I've not actually seen that level of vitriol come out of the biggest right winger on Fox.
You mean, Alan Keyes, Michael Savage, Tucker Carlson, Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan are liberals?
Also, have you even watched Olbermann's show when he was going on about health care?
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Wait, the C doesn't stand for Celebrity?
I can handle the HLN format, it at least is quick and you know when there is news and when there is fluff based on the time. CNN is to news what MTV is to music videos, sure they have it but it seems to not be the focus. Fox is too flashy and the networks are too slanted to provide reporting. The state of broadcast news has forced many of us to use the internet sources that gather it all up in one area (google news is my primary but I will bounce to Drudge for fun)
Re:News (Score:5, Informative)
CNN does have real news, but for some reason it is limited to the international editions. CNN Europe, while nowhere near BBC World, it is an actual news network, and if you go to the CNN website you can choose between American and International version. Switching back and forth on the CNN website is an intersting eye-opener in what kind of stories they run, and which they ignore.
Very true... (Score:2)
They used to have a policy that stated they'd have no celebrity reporters, à la MSNBC. Somewhere along the way that policy changed. I don't know the reasoning behind the change, though. Now we've got Anderson Cooper, Amanpour, Zakaria, etc.
MPAA News (Score:2)
The 3 major news networks are a fucking wasteland of information.
What did you expect from MPAA News [pineight.com]?
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If you really want to know what is going on in the US the best way is to login to BBC news website or get a subscription to BBCAmerican and watch your news there. ITN News is pretty good too and they have that hot Indian chic who is easy on the eyes.
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oops typo...
I was not now, not ever.. a fox news fan :)
CNNCBS (Score:3, Funny)
Ha! Its coming true [wikipedia.org].
Clone Walter Cronkie from his DNA. (Score:4, Insightful)
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CNN was probably the best network when it came to journalism and integrity initially, and then Fox News and MSNBC trashed CNN in the ratings. Now they'll do anything to catch up.
Tabloids are the best selling newspapers in the world. Since when did journalism and integrity sell?
CBS news = NNS (Score:3, Informative)
Funny 'cos CBS joined up with ABC and Fox News Channel to create the Network news Service in response to CNN over 20 years ago.
If this goes ahead the USA will have 1 big news service for TV news - maybe some sort of competition commission might block this?
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Re:CBS news = NNS (Score:5, Informative)
If this goes ahead the USA will have 1 big news service for TV news
We already do. The only major TV news source that doesn't share a parent company with a U.S. movie studio [slashdot.org] is the Public Broadcasting Service.
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We already do. The only major TV news source that doesn't share a parent company with a U.S. movie studio [slashdot.org] is the Public Broadcasting Service.
Ah, maybe that explains why we have to hear about the American Idol "news".
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We already do. The only major TV news source that doesn't share a parent company with a U.S. movie studio is the Public Broadcasting Service.
What do movies have to do with the News?
I mean, other than the bizarre fixation with MPAA the /. crowd has?
I mean, Fuck the MPAA, they're evil, but, there's a lot going on in the world than just movies and TV.
How MPAA membership distorts coverage (Score:2)
What do movies have to do with the News?
TV news tends to bury stories about legislation that helps the movie studios more than it helps the end users. Think back to 1998: did any channel show a balanced report on the Copyright Term Extension Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? And how many channels have run a story about ACTA?
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Maybe ACTA and the DMCA aren't that important to everyone aside from geeks?
Copyright legislation is important to... (Score:2)
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But what would you do with the other 23 hours of news coverage? Copyright legislation just isn't that important to the average viewer.
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But what would you do with the other 23 hours of news coverage?
"Headline news" shows, like MSNBC Live, America's News HQ on Fox News, and News and Views on HLN, typically repeat the same set of stories each hour. After a major milestone in a copyright legislation issue, such as the ACTA leaks or the first official ACTA draft, I'd expect maybe a 60 second story, leaving the rest of the newscast for something else. The problem is that the MPAA-channels don't even give that.
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Oblig. Xkcd: http://xkcd.com/14/ [xkcd.com]
Synonym for make: (Score:3, Funny)
More media consolidation...its about time (Score:4, Funny)
Making News (Score:1)
When things go wrong, journos are quick to point out that they only report what is happening. That's the academic theory they've been taught, in any case.
Making news by omission (Score:4, Insightful)
When things go wrong, journos are quick to point out that they only report what is happening. That's the academic theory they've been taught, in any case.
Journos "make" news in what they choose to report and not to report. For example, which of the MPAA-controlled U.S. TV news organizations has reported on ACTA?
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Looks like via a quick search on TV news, that would be Fox as they had Michael Geist on. No one else has reported on it.
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When things go wrong, journos are quick to point out that they only report what is happening. That's the academic theory they've been taught, in any case.
If it were only true. Too bad they all seem to feel the need to put their own personal bias (left or right, they all seem to) on most stories.
Or, maybe we could get Joey Senat, an associate professor of journalism at Oklahoma State University to tell us how it's supposed to work. http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/05/04/1929208/RFID-Checks-Student-Attendance-in-Arizona [slashdot.org]
CNN, time to do *something* (Score:4, Insightful)
A large percentage of the links off the CNN homepage these days are to the ireport web site, and they don't even differentiate them anymore like they used to. As a general rule, I don't care to see amateur news reporting, and this has been one reason I've used CNN less lately. I'd rather have less news but have it be high quality.
More To Viewership Losses (Score:1, Insightful)
"More proof of the profound impact cable, the Internet, and other outlets have had on broadcast news organizations..."
The fact that their hard news as well as their editorial/opinion shows/segments have also become increasingly-shameless cheerleaders for the Progressive agenda and the Obama administration has also heavily contributed to their viewership losses as ever-larger numbers of people look elsewhere for more objective sources.
Strat
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The fact that their hard news as well as their editorial/opinion shows/segments have also become increasingly-shameless cheerleaders for the Progressive agenda and the Obama administration has also heavily contributed to their viewership losses as ever-larger numbers of people look elsewhere for more objective sources.
The fact that their hard news as well as their editorial/opinion shows/segments also became increasingly-shameless cheerleaders for the Conservative agenda and the Bush administration also heavily contributed to their viewership losses as ever-larger numbers of people looked elsewhere for more objective sources.
I just had a skin-crawl moment. Try this with me: Click on the first google result for "top ten media conglomerates [google.com]". Now go try and look it up on the wayback machine. I'll be patient. Most sites don
Now I know I'm being astroturf-modded (Score:1, Troll)
Modded -1, overrated so that no adjective appears next to my comment's score, in an attempt to be sneaky — some people check out negative moderations to see who is doing what, after all. How much do you get for that line of work? I note that I've picked up another couple of Overrated mods elsewhere on comments which otherwise have overwhelmingly positive moderation. Stop following me around, douche.
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Wonder why they took it down? Would make a great source on an article I'm writing on media misinformation.
Wikipedia says they are a non-profit lefty mag, so obvious corporate meddling isn't an obvious motive.
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You must not actually watch CNN.
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You must not actually watch CNN.
You may watch, but you must not actually see CNN.
Strat
Good luck to them (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope they succeed at making news by merging, because they sure as hell can't report it. Using the words "journalism" and "CNN" in the same sentence has got to be the oxymoron of the year. And CBS isn't that much better any more.
Who Cares? (Score:1)
With their combine number of people watching either, who cares? Evidently not the American public with what ratings they are generating. Maybe Soros will come and buy both networks so he has his propaganda machine in tact.
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That's not to say CNN isn't a horrible network with way too much time spent on mindless drivel, but they are the best of the worst major cable news outlets.
It's sad, but one of the b
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News networks are stupid. They always fill up with crap because good reporting takes too much time and/or money while gossiping about celebs (ugh) is cheap and quick. Trying to fill 24 hours of news without using news from the entire world is just fucking moronic.
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At what point... (Score:2)
Broadcast "news" consumes some extraordinarily valuable spectrum, a resource fairly tightly limited by the laws of physics. We have historically suffered it to do so because of its perceived value to our democratic society. If, however, it cannot demonstrate that value, there are much better things we could be doing with that scarce and valuable spectrum...
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Do we just pull the plug?
Broadcast "news" consumes some extraordinarily valuable spectrum, a resource fairly tightly limited by the laws of physics. We have historically suffered it to do so because of its perceived value to our democratic society. If, however, it cannot demonstrate that value, there are much better things we could be doing with that scarce and valuable spectrum...
While I'm not a fan of the current network "news", I can't believe you think there's not enough spectrum space for them, unless you want to pull the home shopping network, cartoon network, etc., all at once. What's in such dire need of bandwidth, that can't fit in?
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CNN, at least, is not consuming any spectrum. The "C" stands for "cable".
The broadcast spectrum is not as limited as it used to be. Between the switch to digital broadcasting and most viewers switching away from over-the-air altogether, broadcast news is certainly anachronistic. But evening newscasts from the Big Three are still viewed by 20 million people per night, and that's a pretty considerable chunk.
CBS is the least of them, but 5 million people a night still watch it. That's only a quarter of Ame
How Sad (Score:1)
New name? (Score:3, Insightful)
So are they going to call it "CNNBS"?
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So are they going to call it "CNNBS"?
That would be appropriate, since CNN has been spewing nothing but BS for years now.
all of these mindlessly negative comments (Score:1, Insightful)
folks:
there was never a fabled era where news media was unbiased or high quality. look up the term "yellow journalism" from a century ago. the spanish american war was started with the "bombing" of the uss maine in havana that was just as much bullshit as iraq's supposed nuclear program. the newspaper "reporting" from a century ago makes fox faux news blatant warmongering agenda look like amateur hour
additionally, there never will be such a thing as unbiased news media. ever. here. in russia. in china. in e
CNN's ratings need a jump-start? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the problem. CNN cares about ratings. That means they care about the short term at the expense of their reputation as a viable news organization.
Here's a quick fact for all of you TV executives: YOUR RATINGS ARE GOING DOWN BECAUSE PEOPLE HAVE MORE OPTIONS. Quit trying to build this 'one size fits all morons' news channel and start actually reporting news. Hollywood gossip belongs on the Entertainment channel. Quick one-liners and talking heads belong on the Commentary channel. Crazy banners trying to get me all worked up over the world's dumbest terrorist (ya.. that guy from Pakistan recently) belong on the Fear channel. Instead, CNN includes all these things and then calls it the News channel. Seriously? CNN, right now, you are stupider than your audience. You target an audience of stupid people with even stupider content. Even stupid people want to get smarter.
Right now, if you watched CNN all day 24/7, you would not know who your lawmakers are, you would not know which countries are where or what their political system is, understand any non-simplistic political or social situations, understand social and market changes or direction, hear more than a single sentence from a single person at a time without her being interrupted, hear about any real dirt or corruption involved with any affiliated corporation, or understand the real 'world situation.' So, it's entertainment - not news.
And, you talking head assholes (that's pretty much every CNN reporter except Jack Cafferty), IT'S NOT YOUR FUCKING JOB TO SET THE AGENDA FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Quit trying to tell people how to think. Quit identifying any political candidates as 'non-viable' or 'a longshot' or 'fringe' before you talk about them without letting people decide for themselves. Quit having opinions on everything. Quit being condescending to less educated people trying to make a difference in less affluent areas. Quit fabricating shit out of nothing - If there was a device that people thought was a bomb, but was determined not to be a bomb, don't report that it was a bomb! Quit talking only about buzzword political issues like abortion, gun control, and prayer in schools - like they are the only political problems facing the US. Quit wasting our time.
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IT'S NOT YOUR FUCKING JOB TO SET THE AGENDA FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Ten media conglomerates own about 95% of the media in the USA and over 50% of the media in the world. CNN is owned by Time Warner, the world's second largest entertainment conglomerate.[1] These corporations have been telling Americans who they may vote for at least since the first media conglomerates were permitted to exist. IIRC this had to do with J.P. Morgan, but I'm short on citations right now. In any case, it is the media's job to set the agenda for the American people. They don't work for the people
add this up (Score:1)
Those tags again! (Score:1)
Hey! who is the wise guy who put !newsfornerds as a tag for this story?...
Maybe it is a sign of the times when two historically big news organizations coming together is no longer nerdy enough for people to watch or care about.....or discuss..
We're Halfway There! (Score:2)
That psychic at Lisa's Wedding wasn't far off! This partnership means we're halfway towards CNNBCBS (A Division of ABC).
Replace the News with the Henson Company! (Score:2)
I would love to see the Pangea Report with Howard Handupme, or Edward R Hero.
Maybe even break between programming with a Muppet News Flash.
Ron Paul gets cut off when speaking the truth (Score:1)
We need the country to wake their brain dead asses up and do a little bit of research rather than just following the tal
Well played, dinosaurs. (Score:2)
Let's see...
CBS News is in the ratings tank, despite paying buckets of money to people like Katie Couric, one of the worst "news reporters" in television history. No one is watching there.
CNN's prime-time news show ratings are routinely beaten by cable infomercials shown at three in the morning. Nothing there either.
So, they're going to merge and hope this raises ratings?
What could possibly go wrong?
Yup, CNN and Sony commonality (Score:2)
Both had a point in time when their names meant something good, now
"It's a Sony" and "This is CNN" only server as warning labels.
And a merger? I'm sure it'll work out as well as MSNBC has, if you're going for
two single digit viewer-ships, one might actually make it to double digits.
Liberal Rag (Score:1, Flamebait)
All of these news organizations need to remove the political slant from the reporting. Every since CNN turned into a liberal rag I quit watching it.
Really... (Score:2)
Questionable for CBS, good for CNN (Score:2)
"Making News" How true! (Score:1)
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"CNN/FOX going out of business due to low ratings is actually GOOD for US Democracy."
A democracy is two wolves and sheep voting on what's for dinner.
The US is a constitutional republic. The constitutional goes about limiting the powers of government through 17 prohibitive clauses. (Interestingly enough, the general welfare clause which is used often to expand the federal government far beyond its intended power appears in the midst of a prohibitive clause in reference to taxation apportionment, but hey, why
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You don't have to actually put any effort into a filibuster... all you have to do is say "we got 40" and you can't vote.
That's the fault of the majority leader, not the minority that's using the filibuster.
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If there's one thing that the founding fathers certainly would balk at, it's the God-like reverence with which they and their document are treated with today.
Although I support the rule of law, the constitution was written almost 225 years ago, for a union of 13 states. Much has changed since then, and the constitution provides an amendment process for this very purpose.
The filibuster rule made sense when there were only 26 senators -- as the number climbed to 100, it became increasingly obvious that it wa
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it's the God-like reverence with which they and their document are treated with today.
Because it's a very good document.
Although I support the rule of law, the constitution was written almost 225 years ago, for a union of 13 states. Much has changed since then, and the constitution provides an amendment process for this very purpose.
People say all the time, that much has changed. That is true, but just because we travel/trade/communicate far more effectively than we did 200 years ago, doesn't mean that the
Re:Maybe if they just reported the damn news! (Score:4, Informative)
CNN/FOX going out of business due to low ratings is actually GOOD for US Democracy.
Fox News is not going out of business due to low ratings (or any other reason) currently. Fox News actually gets decent ratings and their ratings are steadily improving.
Re: UCk! (Score:5, Informative)
Click your remote a few times and you'll eventually hit upon MSNBC... they're about as liberal as they come.
As far as "deep investigations", well, why would these networks do any thorough investigating when the latest newsbyte comes from the next viewer email, complete with camphone video? Not saying it's right, just that seems to be the way everything is headed.
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"Click your remote a few times and you'll eventually hit upon MSNBC... they're about as liberal as they come."
And that's the posters point. MSNBC is liberal in the sense that they present viewpoints that are less conservative than networks such as FOX. They aren't liberal in any real way.
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Really. Or do you not think Keith Olberman or Rachel Maddow qualify as liberal? They're standard fare MSNBC programming. Maybe you can point me toward something liberal then, if that's not it.