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Television Media Government Politics

CNN Cancels Crossfire 182

Posted by CowboyNeal from the jon-stewart-victorious dept.
blonde rser writes "Three months after Jon Stewart appeared on (and lambasted) CNN's Crossfire the Globe and Mail reports that CNN is dumping Tucker Carlson. It appears that Crossfire is being canceled and Carlson's contract is not being renewed. As to whether Stewart's opinion had any affect on the decision there is this quote from Jonathan Klein, CEO of CNN's US network: 'I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp.'"
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CNN Cancels Crossfire More

CNN Cancels Crossfire

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  • How did Carlson land that job anyways? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HolyCoitus ( 658601 ) on Thursday January 06, 2005 @08:12AM (#11274026)
    I don't know a single person that likes him, regardless of their political interests. If he were on Slashdot, he'd have been modded -1 flamebait immediately and never thought of again.

    I'm curious though. What's his background that earned him the spot on a show like Crossfire? He had to have done something that made him in the spotlight in some way before that I would assume?

    • Re:How did Carlson land that job anyways? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by xanderwilson ( 662093 ) on Thursday January 06, 2005 @08:20AM (#11274056) Homepage
      In today's world of pundits, you don't need to have a background in hard news research and fact-checking. You just have to have an opinion and, preferably, a marketable personality. I'd like to see more seasoned journalists do news analysis, rather than people on all sides with their minds decided before they collect the facts to back their opinions up.

      Alex.
      • I agree with you completely. I take it a step in a different direction though, and would prefer a lot of people with questionable credentials coming to a conclusion on an issue. Something such as Slashdot mainly.

        Takes your mind down more interesting paths and forces you to question things.

        Was Carlson's personality something taht anyone could market though? Was he presented as an asshole to make it so that people from "the left" would watch to hope he gets his ass handed to him?

        • Was Carlson's personality something taht anyone could market though? Was he presented as an asshole to make it so that people from "the left" would watch to hope he gets his ass handed to him?

          I wouldn't be surprised. Crossfire is not a political analysis or debate show. It's a performance show. It's entertainment. Civil, objective and rational debate is not the point of Crossfire.

          Civil debate is great and all, but it's not entertainment. It's not exciting. It doesn't reach out to you, Joe Viewer, and grab

      • You just have to have an opinion

        I think calling Anne Coulter's mentally derranged mussings an "opinion" is too much of a compliment. After all this is the woman who compared The New York Times to the 9/11 terrorists.

        All you need is a marketable personality and the willingness to engage in a shoold-yard-like shouting match.

      • I'd like to see more seasoned journalists do news analysis, rather than people on all sides with their minds decided before they collect the facts to back their opinions up.

        What seasoned journalist? You mean like Dan Rather who did SO MUCH research before this story [cbsnews.com]? Nearly all journalist today have their mind made up about an issue before they even do the research. Most of them only do the research to back up what they think is true and how it should be presented. What passes as journalism today

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I'm curious though. What's his background that earned him the spot on a show like Crossfire? He had to have done something that made him in the spotlight in some way before that I would assume?

      Because he wears a bow tie? Let's not pretend that CNN is somehow objective in the arena of politics - this is the network that initially reported the Sandy Berger story leaving out the bit about him stuffing the papers in his pants and socks.

      Tucker Carlson is the caricature of an American conservative and that su

      • Re:Bowtie (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) *
        In more ways than one- if Stewart ends up there- who is of an equal stature for Comedy Central to replace their fake news anchor with? Maybe Mo Rocha (sp? Don't remember his last name) or Candice Bergman, but there isn't anybody I can think of that would do as good of a job as Stewart has done with the fake news.

        • Re:Bowtie (Score:3, Funny)

          by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) *
          but there isn't anybody I can think of that would do as good of a job as Stewart has done with the fake news.

          I hear Dan Rather is available as of this spring.

          (sorry, I couldn't resist)
          • Too unbelieveable :-) At least Stewart is more believeable- and he even ADMITS that his news stories are fake (though it took me quite a while to realize what the studio audience of The Daily Show already knew: Whenever somebody is "live on location" it means that they are on the other side of the stage standing in front of a great big TV set showing the "location".)
        • Dennis Miller.

          But then again, he already has a show.

          • Re:Bowtie (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) *
            Also the wrong bent- Daily Show is supposed to be the parody of the Cable News Networks, which range from the Centerist CNN to the Rightwing Fox- you need a leftwinger to parody them properly.
            • CNN isn't centrist. It leans to the left.
              • > CNN isn't centrist. It leans to the left.

                Anything "leans to the left" when you're looking from that far on the right.

                Washington Times? Fox News? Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter? Talk radio? All right leaning.

                The mainstream media? CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYT, Washington Post: all painfully center, who try so hard to be "objective" that they don't even report on facts any longer; they just report "both sides" of the story. Not surprising since all these organizations are owned by large cor
              • Unless of course you're a socialist or distributist- then CNN's constant harping on the good of the stock market and other capitalistic tendencies make it look like it leans to the right.

                The real problem is that the extremes are so far apart- the center looks like the other side when it really isn't.
              • Name some regular "Left" issues and show how CNN supports them.

                Actual "Left" issues, not just "Right" issues taken to a less extreme point.
    • He had to have done something that made him in the spotlight in some way before that I would assume?

      He looked good in a bow tie.

  • quote (Score:3, Funny)

    by Fr05t ( 69968 ) on Thursday January 06, 2005 @08:12AM (#11274027)
    Jonathan Klein, CEO of CNN's US network: 'I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp.'

    Later in the day Klein was herd coughing in the following way "*cou*cock*gh*munch*" as he walked past Carlson.
  • I'm a conservative and I absolutely hate that guy. He tries to defend Bush when there is no reason to defend him. I'm a conservative and Bush is an insane president with a socialist agenda. I suppose they only got Carlson on there to make conservatives look retarded.

    • Are you a conservative? I didn't get that.

      Teasing aside, Carlson had come down in the pro-Kerry camp before the election, for what it's worth. Then again, so did a lot of socially liberal fiscal conservatives. YMMV.

    • socialist agenda? wtf have you been watching? Bush is the wet dream of hardcore capitalists.
      • You're either too far left to realize or too ignorant to understand that Bush is in no way a "hardcore capitalist". Bush has multiplied the size of the federal government, cheered on NAFTA and GATT and all those other "free trade" treaties which bring on yet more regulatory nonsense, redistributes wealth...the list goes on and on.

        Damn I'm burned out. I need sleep.
        • "free trade" treaties? Last time I checked these tree trade treaties allow the outsourcing to whichever country has the lowest standard of living and lack of employeement laws. The wealth gets redistributed - right back to those who have it.
        • I'd say that Bush absolutely is a hardcore capitalist. What he's not is a hardcore free-marketer, because he's really fond of corporate pork. It's capitalism as defined by "protect big business", basically a re-branded version of Reagans trickle-down economics.

          Note where the increases the federal government actually are - it's not like he's pumping a ton of extra money into the FCC or the federal reserve or authoring bills for greated market regulation.

        • The term you're looking for is "state capitalism", which is what we have under Bush, which both "left" and "right" oppose ideologically, but which borrows from each of their worst abuses. That huge federal government collects $2T in taxes from people without the capitalist clout to avoid taxes. Then spends $2T in taxes on huge corporations with that clout. NAFTA and GATT are the ways that multinationals carry on that game on the regional and global scale. It's the same definition of "hardcore" in capitalism
      • socialist agenda? wtf have you been watching? Bush is the wet dream of hardcore capitalists.

        I say hardcore capatalists hate him, stocks did poorly during his administrations. The economy at home is stagnant. He is starting trade wars with Canada, and pissing off the chinese. He's bankign all his economic futures on oil. The only people who have wet dreams about bush are the fundies, and thats because they don't have sex with anyone because god forbid they enjoy anything except tormenting others.
    • Okay, you have no clue what you're talking about. Bush is about as close to the opposite of a socialist that you can get. Reducing taxes and privitizing social security alone would disprove what you said, but his pro-capitalism tax/corporate agenda go even further. His backing of Medicare is about the only thing socialistic about him.

      I mean, really, look at Canada or some European countries for much closer examples of socialism. We're nowhere close and getting further away.

      --trb
      • He's running a record deficit. And the average citizen have to pay that in the end, because afterall there is noone else that can pay it. Say hello to inflation and bad times.

        When the government spends money, that is socialism.
        • So, not all socialism is bad. Clever -- I like it.

          Cheers,
          -l
        • You seem to imply that running a deficit means that he is socialist. That doesn't make any sense at all. Canada is running a budget surplus, and has been for years.

          Government spending money is not socialism, that's what governments do. Otherwise, they wouldn't be of any use at all. Bush, however, is not spending it on social policies, he's burning it in the name of national defense, something that, no matter anyone's opinion, governments SHOULD spend money on. Just... not that much, and not so wastefully.
          • Canada is running a budget surplus, and has been for years.

            The federal government maybe, but here in Manitoba we keep electing these extremely left leaning NDP idiots who have no idea how to balance their budget [www.cbc.ca].
            • The federal government maybe, but here in Manitoba we keep electing these extremely left leaning NDP idiots who have no idea how to balance their budget.

              Your analysis is only partially correct. We just keep electing idiots, period. Filmon and his "balanced budget" was just as crooked and artificial as Doer's is. One was "balancing" by (amongst other nutty things) basically removing all the government functions, remember "Filmon fridays?" (only a complete nutjob anarcho-libertartian could ever consider that

          • Government spending money is not socialism, that's what governments do. Otherwise, they wouldn't be of any use at all. Bush, however, is not spending it on social policies, he's burning it in the name of national defense, something that, no matter anyone's opinion, governments SHOULD spend money on. Just... not that much, and not so wastefully.

            I don't think invading another country is spending on "defence". That would be called war mongering, and it would also be called a huge waste of tax payer monies th
        • No, when the government *owns* the means of production, *that* is socialism. Government expense on, say, advertising, is "state capitalism", like the behemoth state capitalism we have in the US. When the state capitalism is controlled by/for corporations, that's "fascism", even when it's cloaked in doublespeak like "National Socialism" (Nazism).
        • Cry me a river about the deficit. The Democrats didn't give a crap about the deficit before the Republican Congress and the Internet bubble erased it under Clinton, and now all of the sudden it's a big issue with them. Somehow. Magically. They sure didn't give a crap about it during the 1980s when they were in control of Congress.

          And don't get me started on Senator Byrd... He's the biggest pork barrel spender EVER.

          Deficits. Please.
    • I'm a conservative and Bush is an insane president with a socialist agenda.

      I'm a conservative, and there are genuine issues that we can differ with the president on but a socialist agenda? Come on man!

      LK
    • I'm a conservative and Bush is an insane president with a socialist agenda.

      Er, no?!

      Hint: When someone wants to privatise everything, he's not a socialist.
      Socialism is to the left, Bush is waaaaayyyyy over there on the right.

      The political mindset of someone who is pro-military, pro-industry, pro-capitalism and hypernationalistic is fascism.

  • I doubt the sincerity of that comment! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dr. Spork ( 142693 ) on Thursday January 06, 2005 @08:23AM (#11274066)
    If the CEO of CNN really thought what he said he thought, CNN USA would look very different. I first thought their terrible and deliberately distorted news coverage had to do with their incompetence (or lack of resources). But this isn't true. I've spent a few days watching CNN Europe, and I have to tell you that it is a far better news channel. They actually do balanced and interesting stories, and are generally much less Tucker-Carlson-like. So the crap they're brodcasting into the USA is deliberately dumbed down. They actually have less-dumbed-down versions of all their big stories, but they just don't broadcast them in North America.

    I saw Jon Stewart on Crossfire and from what I could gather from his rant, he objected to the institution of Republicans and Democrats yelling slogans from their talking points list, and pretending it's debate... and then pretending that reports like "Democrats claim X; Republicans claim Y" is news. So what if Crossfire is over. Everything that JS freaked out about is absolutely at the foundation of the way CNN reports. Crossfire is just reveals that formula in an especially naked way. So I don't understand how somebody could agree with JS and still be CEO of CNN-USA.

    • So the crap they're brodcasting into the USA is deliberately dumbed down.

      Networks will only broadcast what the public want.

      When it comes to news, from what the outside world sees, the American public (the majority thereof, which I suspect (nay, hope) does not include yourself, or many /.ers) happens to want dumbed down news.

      They want flag waving sound bites, heaven knows they don't want to be made to think about stuff, or told stuff about "some foreigners who don't live here", just force fed the top sto
      • > the American public (the majority thereof [...]) happens to want dumbed down news.

        I wouldn't say the majority, but a sizeable portion. That would explain why Fox News is popular, but not THAT popular. There's a certain segment of the population that cannot stomach criticism of anything American, and unfortunately since the current administration is part of it, this segment gets over-targetted by the mainstream media.
        • There's a certain segment of the population that cannot stomach criticism of anything American, and unfortunately since the current administration is part of it, this segment gets over-targetted by the mainstream media.

          this segment is also the dumbest and mostly easily influenced by advertising. Thus their worth the most tot he networks. They all naively beleive maxdonalds hamburgers are the best, that more GHZ means more performance, that american automobiles are just great, and all muslims are baby eati
      • I sort of resent the attitude that Americans just want crap and CNN is just giving them what they want. It may be true that some Americans want crap. But I dispute the notion that we all do, or even the demographically meaningful ones do. Aren't the crap-consumers watching The Simple Life instead of CNN to begin with?

        News didn't used to be like this, and I don't think it's *all* because Americans just started demanding more crap. I have my own political positions, but I want honest conservative guests
    • In the US the press needs to keep the political parties happy with them. If not they might lose their Air Force One press pass and get over looked during press event question periods. It may or may not actually happen, however that isn't the point.

      • In the US the press needs to keep the political parties happy with them.

        Only indirectly.

        I used to think that Rupert Murdoch's main purpose was to drive a particular political agenda, particularly with hiring Roger Ailes to run a "News" channel.

        I was wrong.

        Newscorp's political agenda is, in turn, driven by his main objective: to make money by drawing in as many viewers as possible and correspondingly large advertisement revenue.

        If the "news" you're watching isn't either boring (Medicare costs are goi

      • In the US the press needs to keep the political parties happy with them.

        I'd be happy with one that tore both parties apart on equal terms. I'd watch that.

        If not they might lose their Air Force One press pass and get over looked during press event question periods.

        Seeing as how most of the White House "press meetings" are 100% scripted with all questions submitted before asking, I'm not sure this would be a big loss.

        Again, I'd watch it IF they stuck to their ethics and stated that they were NOT particip

    • The important information you're missing is that the CEO of CNN who said that was only recently (end of November) appointed CEO of CNN. So, in fact, the evidence (cancelling of crossfire & some other shows) suggests that he really does think what he said he thinks.
    • I don't believe CNN's CEO agreed with Jon. It was probably more the cynical Americans which agreed with Jon and their viewership dropped. Or more appropriately, maybe he was tired of looking like a fool at the posh CEO gatherings. Whispers behind his back, "It was his decision to promote Crossfire, and now America is laughing at him. Where's my martini?"

      Come on, they argue the entire time on the show. It's the polical "Seinfeld". The show is about nothing, discusses nothing, and at the end of the sho

  • Props to Jon Stewart (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ed333 ( 684843 ) on Thursday January 06, 2005 @08:32AM (#11274096)
    We need more people like Jon Stewart to actually say whats on their mind.

  • A parade of human cartoons (Score:4, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Thursday January 06, 2005 @09:03AM (#11274220)
    The show became a parade of human cartoons. Novak the duckman. Lord Voldecarville. Pat "Third Reich from the Sun" Buchanan. Let's leave this kind of thing to Warner Bros Daffy vs Bugs cartoons.

  • I'll be the first to say it... (Score:5, Funny)

    by bizpile ( 758055 ) * on Thursday January 06, 2005 @09:38AM (#11274450) Homepage
    ...Jon Stewart '08. (Hopefully Lewis Black will be his running mate.)

  • It's Official (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mshiltonj ( 220311 ) <mshiltonj@NoSPaM.gmail.com> on Thursday January 06, 2005 @09:59AM (#11274579) Homepage Journal
    John Stewart -- The Most Powerful Comedian In News.
    • John Stewart -- The Most Powerful Comedian In News.

      Now if he could just prevail on Comedy Central's web monkeys to make the Daily Show's web site work.

      We've decided it's time to drop our cable service, because we've found so little that's worth watching on all those channels, so why pay for something that we aren't using? One major exception was the Daily Show, which was the best place to find accurate coverage of the recent American elections. For "straight" news, TV is now pretty much useless, and a
    • And don't forget Daily Show viewers are the best informed on television [slashdot.org].

      So, can we get a Daily Show topic now?

  • transcript (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sogol ( 43574 ) on Thursday January 06, 2005 @09:59AM (#11274584) Journal
    Link to the transcript of John Stewarts appearance on crossfire:

    http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/15/cf. 01.html [cnn.com]
  • tucker stood in for aaron on his regular newsnight program last week. tucker just read the news very quickly (totally sans feeling) and was the worst substitute they could have chosen! not soft spoken, not sensitive, not caring in the least.

    that guy should NOT be put in front of public. he's just a moran in outdated garb.
  • Carville always made him his bitch. Someone like Ann Coulter would have made a better commentator. I'm shedding no tears for the milqetoast clown.

    As for CNN canceling crossfire, so what? It was innovative in its day, but its day is over. It had gotten boring. No one ever debated anymore, just slung their party-line slogans around. Jon Stewart's appearance was just an excuse (and a lousy excuse, at that. What a self-rightous diatribe THAT was).

  • I saw he has a show on PBS now. To placate the right wing? Anyway, I hope he gets off of PBS especially.
  • Has anyone watched Tucker's PBS Show [pbs.org]? Personally I don't see why people are hating on Tucker so bad. I get the impression that Novak actually believes the shit he spews, and that Tucker is spewing the shit for the purpose of debate, playing devil's advocate perhaps. In my opinion, the only time Crossfire was ever tolerable was when it was Begala vs. Carlson. Mostly because Begala is easier on the eyes than Carville.

    Crossfire was pretty dumbass, but i found it interesting because it was a daily testing gr

    • This was the funny (yet sad) part about Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire. He clearly admits that his show is a comedy show, duh its on a network called Comedy Central. People don't tune into his show to become informed on the news, they tune in to laugh.

      Crossfire does attempt to be a news show and does a terrible job at it. They're on CNN, a news network that people turn on to learn about the news. Go figure?

      Stewart was attacked for doing a bad job or reporting the news on his comedy show? I

    • "Mostly because Begala is easier on the eyes than Carville."

      I know. Unlike Carville, Begala has not done such stunts as fire deathbeams from his wand into the audience screaming "Due, muggle scum!", reveal that his face was on the back of the head of a stuttering professor, and drinking unicorn's blood on live TV.

    • Tucker is spewing the shit for the purpose of debate

      You misspelled "blind raving lunacy and pumping the party line".
    • Plus, Crossfire and perhaps the McLaughlin Group are the only truly non-partisan politics shows. Both sides get equal time.

      Equal time does not mean non-partisan. If I gave 15 min to a fundementalist aryan nations activist and then 15 min to Ralph Nader, I may have given equal time but I've weighted the "debate" so much to the left that it's rediculous. Crossfire did this weighting to the right. Pitting smart and eloquent right wingers against inarticulate lefties who were sometimes flakes. this weighted t
      • You almost had it, but you dropped it or maybe you have it but weren't able to express it. Crossfire wasn't non-partisan because it gave equal time to "both sides". At best, we can call it "bipartisan" (although the meaning here is different than what we normally think of as bipartisan), because it was pitting two very narrow opposing viewpoints against each other. There was no examination of issues, and no debate beyond some sort of talking-points-punch-and-judy show.

        I've always liked McLaughlin Group. In
  • I wanted to hear this interview, and was unable to connect to the links posted from the original story. Anybody have a working link to a torrent stream of the Stewart interview on Xfire? thanks.

  • misunderstanding steward (Score:3, Informative)

    by elbarrio ( 592330 ) on Friday January 07, 2005 @02:27AM (#11285340)
    From what I gather, this is a total misunderstanding of what Jon Stewart was trying to say. As I understood it, he was trying to say that the problem is that we refuse to have real debate. crossfire, as Jon sees it (so I think), engages in theatre, not debate. The criticism of the media is that they fake being even handed, and by doing so don't actually provide meaningful analysis. The interpretation that debate in all forms should go is way off. Debating an issue and reading the party-line propaganda are two completely different things.

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