Your Opinion Counts At CNN — But Should It? 383
theodp writes "Some people love how CNN employs Twitter to engage its audience. Not Steve Dahl. 'I am not interested in the take of @stinky on the Fort Hood shootings or any other current events,' complains Dahl of the access the media gives to Internet know-it-alls. 'I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news, not act as a clearinghouse for any bonehead with a computer, a cable modem and a half-baked opinion.'"
Yeah! (Score:5, Funny)
I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news, not act as a clearinghouse for any bonehead with a computer, a cable modem and a half-baked opinion
Yeah! That is slashdot's job!!
Re:Yeah! (Score:5, Insightful)
If I want solid information I head over to a site like PhysOrg. If I want to see what others are thinking I head to Slashdot.
News services have become such an opinion mill that it's starting to make it hard to take them seriously. There is a time and place for people to banter on but I don't want it from a news outlet.
I've seen far too many people around here armed with little more than a high school education think that they have a better understanding of the universe than engineers who are in the field. I know the public opinion on just about anything is 10 times worse. We already have a half a million forums for these people to spout their crap on. Do we really need another?
Re:Yeah! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm with you there. I don't know if this applies across the board, since I have neither the time nor inclination to read all the on-line newspapers (I only buy dead-tree papers when I need something to light a fire with), but I am getting a bit tired of endless screen-space devoted to the inarticulate musings of bored housewives and outraged rednecks. And newspapers aren't the only culprits. New Scientist [newscientist.com] used to be quite a useful aggregation for scientific journal content, but it's steadily turning into a soap-box.
In the days of the print media, there was something of a class barrier where contributors were expected to know at least something about a subject before pontificating. This survived for a few years with the on-line versions, but now we are seeing a situation where on slow news days we also seem to be getting lumbered with the above-mentioned kind of rubbish presented in a more fleshed-out form as "real" articles under the masthead of formerly reputable newspapers. The Age [theage.com.au] is a good example of this. I think the editor changed a while ago, and for all the content is now worth, I often feel I might as well be reading Twitter.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yeah! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah! Leave those discussion to those of us who have PhDs in Universal Engineering!
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
We already have a half a million forums for these people to spout their crap on. Do we really need another?
Ah, but look how useful the musings of the masses [youtube.com] can be when big news happens [youtube.com] (yes, it's relevant to TFA, but in general you owe it to yourself to check out some of Mitchell and Webb's sketches if you haven't seen them before).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
News services have become such an opinion mill that it's starting to make it hard to take them seriously. There is a time and place for people to banter on but I don't want it from a news outlet.
Yeah! That's why I'll only watch Fox News!
Re:Yeah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Getting rid of downmods on Slashdot sounds great in theory but it would just result in GNAA posts lingering at 1 (or 2 if the guy doing it has good karma). Which means I'd have to set my threshhold even higher to avoid seeing them, which would bury comments that are actually useful.
The Slashdot moderation system has its flaws, but it seems to work better than most of the alternatives out there.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Getting rid of downmods on Slashdot sounds great in theory but it would just result in GNAA posts lingering at 1 (or 2 if the guy doing it has good karma).
So browse at 3 or 4. If we went to a 10-point scale and simply allowed downmods, you'd have the same effect Slashdot tries for (let the best comments rise to the top for easier browsing) while not needing the "OMG THEY SAID SOMETHING I DONT AGREE WITH KILL IT KILL IT" downmod crap that passes for "moderation" these days.
As for the karma thing, alter karm
Re:Yeah! (Score:5, Funny)
but that will take away the righteousness I feel when down-modding things i don't agree with^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H err... when down-modding useless goatse.cx comments. that's it. yeah.
Re:Yeah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Eliminate the weapon, and you make it a choice: either mod 500 posts in a 1000-message thread up, or all 500 posters' signals are lost in 500 posts of GNAA noise.
Because it takes less effort to downmod a post to -1 than it does to post at 0 or +1, Slashdot's actually readable, even at 0 or -1.
Taking away downmoderation would require work on the part of every legitimate reader. Most legitimate readers aren't willing to work if they have to click/mod to make everything readable (on a large thread, you'd wind up with carpal tunnel syndrome after the first hour), but the trolls are more than willing to put the time in to make everything unreadable.
If you want a system where only the "blessed" are heard and the moderation system goes out of its way to emphasize the article and de-emphasize the comments (even to the point of requiring Javascript and multiple mouseclicks to read anything, and putting the comments in the wrong chronological order so that only the most recent few are ever visible), there's Gawker. It makes Digg look useful. Me? I come to Slashdot (albeit in classic mode :) to get away from that sort of thing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I've always assumed the block on modding and posting was to keep people from modding their own comments up and boosting their karma.
Re:Yeah! (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, I took your advice and now I can't see your post.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Getting rid of downmods on Slashdot sounds great in theory but it would just result in GNAA posts lingering at 1 (or 2 if the guy doing it has good karma). Which means I'd have to set my threshhold even higher to avoid seeing them, which would bury comments that are actually useful.
First of all the Greater Nashville Apartment Association has a right to their opinion like everyone else. ;)
But seriously, in case you haven't noticed there are a lot of legitimate posts buried by moderators who simply can't stand reading something they disagree with. Especially when the topic is political or similarly divisive topic. So that's already going on. Slashdot has never been particularly fair and balanced. Of course, neither is the news media these days.
There's a bit of tongue in cheek there in S
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No it doesn't. It encourages the public opinion.
It shapes the public opinion. "I don't know what I'm talking about, so I'm going to go with whatever public opinion says and get that word 'Informative' next to my name!" "Oh, look, BSOD jokes get modded up!" "Chair throwing!" "I've never used an iPhone but it sucks!" "I'm glad I don't own a TV anymore!" "Save Farscape!"
No, I like slashdot because the modders here generally see through the bullshit people think they are passing as genuine opinion.
Oh, please. The modders are people who have had good karma for a while. They're not trained staff. They mod up or down based on their opinion. It's like being back in grade school at
Re:Yeah! (Score:4, Informative)
EXACTLY!
Which is why I don't throw chairs at people that just want a phone that makes calls. It can't be an iPhone, because they suck and I don't own a TV anymore...and I'm glad of it. Nothing to watch since Farscape is gone.
Don't know about the old Karma Powered Trolls? (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone who has good karma isn't going to post GNAA posts.
You may notice that your karma maxes out at "excellent." In ancient times, slashdot used to have a points system with no ceiling, so you could accumulate karma levels OVER NINE THOUSAND!!! Trolls would karma whore until they achieved insane karma levels, then skydive from karma heaven with an epic trolling spree. That's why the new system has a ceiling - if you tried something like that now, your karma would run out quickly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sort of random:
I read at 0 because I have found that this gives me the best overview. Things seem to only end up at -1 if they really deserve it (copy paste stuff), however things will sit at 0 even though they are reasonable comments, or at least as reasonable as some of the +5, insightful stuff. So I don't think that the slashdot system is bad, just that you need to read at 0 to get the best use out of it, after all, every so often AC says something worth reading, which is why we are supposed to focus o
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So I don't think that the slashdot system is bad, just that you need to read at 0 to get the best use out of it, after all, every so often AC says something worth reading, which is why we are supposed to focus on modding things up instead of down
If you're supposed to focus on modding things up, why have a downmod at all? All the downmod allows for is for hacks and jerks who happen to get points in the modpoint lottery to go on an attacking spree. I know, I'm sure I'm on a few enemies lists - I've seen month
Re:Yeah! (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with removing down modding is that there is then no way of filtering out the actual spam, aside from setting your reading level above the default which then means that you miss the ACs with good comments that don't get modded up.
I still think that the slashdot system is the best I have seen, I just wish there was some more stringent way of knocking people out of the moderating system, and that up mods counted for a lot more than down mods.
One of the interesting effects of down modding a good comment is that they CAN'T down mod all of the replies that it garners, and there are enough people that read at -1 that there will be comments.
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Really? I think Slashdot would be greatly improved by adding *more* downmodding as well as increasing the upmod cap. The problem I see is that the people who don't read the articles and have no idea what they're talking about drown out the few people with real expertise. Go to any science article and you'll see this -- "I'm not a physicist or anything, but [three paragraphs of uninformed speculation garbage]" gets heavily upmodded by other people who aren't physicists either. Then you have the issue that an
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You've got your perspective upside-down and inside-out is all.
Digg has ceased to be relevant precisely because of "bury brigades" - organized groups of people who mod down anything they disagree with. Digg is where the term originated, though it fits well for a good number of Slashdot's abusive modpoint users as well (on multiple sides of any issue; look how many posts get downmodded because they discuss the good and bad of Linux or Microsoft for another example).
The purpose of Slashdot's moderation as stat
Re:Yeah! (Score:4, Interesting)
I have one other question - in a debate a while back, I posted a link to two Youtube videos about why you should never agree to be "interviewed" by the cops. For the discussion it was on-topic, relevant, and a serious point to be made. Because I'm willing to actually speak my mind on occasion and say the occasional uncomfortable truth in the face of the various bury-brigaders here, I saw at least one downmod of "troll" and two "overrateds"; it was briefly sitting at -1 before someone with half a brain saw it and the trend reversed.
The surest sign for me that there are bury-brigaders at work on Slashdot, however, is the number of times I've seen old posts (as in 2+ weeks) suddenly drop from 5 down to 4, 3, or in a few cases all the way to -1. What made them 5's two weeks ago and -1's today? Nothing save for the the fact that organized bury-brigaders were launching an attack on my karma because something else I said was antithetical to their warped worldview. They can't downmod you more than once per comment on a given account, but they can find older posts to dishonestly downmod just to get at your karma.
Hell, I've been downmodded "troll" for correcting someone's bad math before thanks to the bury-brigaders.
So tell me - how does your "pass the guns and shoot to kill" solution fix these problems?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are times when it's interesting to see the reaction of the populace, but I'm looking for insightful commentary, not trite catch phrases and indignant attempts at cleverness. To make things worse, most of the newscasts that use social media as part of their show will pose their question and pick two respondents as follows:
Do you agree with Proposition 782?
I appreciate that news outlets want to show all sides
Ironic Question (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Khaaaaaaaaan!
Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
While I mostly love Slashdot for its comments and the talks between members, it just doesn't work everywhere. If I'm watching CNN from TV, I'm looking for intelligent, fact-checked news and opinions from professionals, not from some mommy who is twittering without understanding any of the issues behind specific things.
Re:Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm watching CNN from TV, I'm looking for intelligent, fact-checked news and opinions from professionals
Yes, but unfortunately that's not what you are getting most of the time. CNN is better than most IMO, but what we tend to see is entertainment, not news. How many times do we see these channels making news rather than reporting the news? I'm so sick of seeing this kind of behavior.
A great example was on Fox recently where they were asking people on the street what they thought of Sharon Osbourne's comments on Susan Boyle. Most people hadn't heard it, as it happened on an Sirius radio show, but Fox was constantly reporting on it. Then Fox tracked down Susan Boyle at the airport (at the same time as Entertainment Tonight and a few other programs) and asked her how she felt. This isn't reporting the news, this is making the news.
News organizations should be held to reporting the news, being fair about what they are reporting, and being held to a standard. They are worried about ratings, and unfortunately that affects content.
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I just saw this on NBC this morning, where they received a lot of comments about a girl who had a repetitive sneezing problem. The comments went like this:
- wash out her nose with salt water
- tell her to see a chiropractor to get rebalanced
- make her jump rope and she'll stop
- feed her lots of vitamin A, just short of an overdose!
And so on. I came to the conclusion that most people are incredibly stupid, and I think NBC should have ignored these opinions, and covered something else instead, like why Obama
Re:Comments (Score:4, Informative)
It's not just the masses commenting on articles that are incredibly stupid, their (CNN) reporters and correspondents aren't much better (and their talking heads are nearly as bad).
During the coverage of the Fort Hood shooting, they had a reporter saying:
"He had two pistols, one a semi-automatic of a type favored by the narco gangs, so you know how deadly it is." No, I don't know how deadly it is. Other than being a semi-auto pistol I have no clue what brand let alone model he was talking about. He never mentioned the actual weapons.
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>they just helped get the word out about what other people were doing (eg, reporting the news).
When you call an event with 10k people to have 40k people, when your producers are getting the crowd to shout for the cameras, and your opinion shows are showing footage of larger crowds from months ago, then guess what, YOU ARE MANUFACTURING THE NEWS.
We've seen it before with Fox with the elementary school kids who sang a song about Obama. Fox airs it, says "people are talking," and then their opinion shows sa
Re:Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
>Watch the coverage of any "demonstration" shown on any news show.
Bullshit. FOX didnt even cover the big gay rights event in DC a couple of weeks ago. I dont know why some people just cant accept FOX as the partisan outlet they are. Incredible.
Re:Comments (Score:4, Insightful)
The only thing infusing the news with twitter comments and real time viewer feedback does for me on television is anger me by having the typical mouth-breathing idiot's opinion spewed from their trailer to the rest of the world on a massive broadcast when I'd rather just be getting news. I just want to know what events are right now. I don't need to hear @bootycakes (a real twitter name I saw on CNN once) have their uninformed opinion in 65 characters parroted by Don Lemon over live TV.
CNN was the last news I bothered to watch on TV and I haven't even really watched that since just after the election. I'm a bit of a news-hound and a political junkie, but too much of this "ireport" and "udecide" and "twitter" and "facebook" and "call in and share your opinion" and "youtube the news" crap has kind of driven me away entirely. I'll just grab the headlines from google news and skip the commentary.
Re:Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Go watch The Daily Shows [thedailyshow.com] with Jon Stewart. You'd be surprised just how well they actually cover the news in 20 minutes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you consider "The Daily Show" a news source and not purely entertainment... well, I doubt you'd understand what I was going to say next anyway.
It's a modern "Not Necessarily The News".
Re:Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Except by every means, The Daily Show covers more news than the typical mouth-breathing news casters, and does so in a funny way. They don't lie, make shit up, or spend thirty minutes covering Madonna's booger incident via twitter: they show news footage, give a quick 60 second real news blurb, then make a joke.
Watch Fox News, the real Fox News and not their commentators, and then watch The Daily Show. Report back with which one gave you more information.
Re:Comments (Score:5, Interesting)
Except by every means, The Daily Show covers more news than the typical mouth-breathing news casters, and does so in a funny way. They don't lie, make shit up, or spend thirty minutes covering Madonna's booger incident via twitter: they show news footage, give a quick 60 second real news blurb, then make a joke.
Totally agree. The Daily Show makes news entertaining. Fox makes entertaining news.
Re:Comments (Score:5, Interesting)
Insightful? How soon we forget. There's an academic organization that rates the quality of news shows. The Daily Show ranks quite high.
How do I know about it? This obscure little news aggregation website. You may have heard of it. It's called Slashdot.org.
http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/04/2320219 [slashdot.org]
Re:Comments (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm familiar with Stewart's own impression of his show. He got interviewed by some of the news commentators on one of the major networks during the campaign season, where they tried to accuse him of being a poor reporter. His come-back was to point out that his show follows another show about muppets making prank phone calls.
The point is that even though he's on the Comedy Central network, and has had such luminary lead-in pieces as the Crank Yankers, he STILL has nearly as much actual news on his segment as an alleged news segment on an actual news network. They too fill up their time with meaningless interviews from know-nothings, social commentary, and irrelevancies. The fact that the Daily Show actually does come close stands as its own very sad commentary on the state of television news. It is lowest common denominator info-tainment, not news, and calling any of them news is like calling Fox News fair and balanced. Just because it's repeated a lot doesn't make it true.
Another poster pointed out a 1985 book decrying television news, making the case that the medium by its very nature isn't capable of thoughtful analysis, and I have to agree with it. TV is a game of telephone played among people sitting around a campfire, blown up to global proportions and broadcast 24 hours a day. It's ephemeral, ghostly, unaccountable. Even in this day of wide-spread recording devices, it's still difficult to challenge statements made on TV in any sort of seriousness. The medium and its audience don't want analysis like that, and actively object to it. On the rare occasions that a news network tries it, they get shouted down by the people they are questioning, with statements like, "Why are we going over old ground? We need to progress forward!" The questioner never seems to have an answer for that, and they're left looking dim and obstructionist, when really the only way to get at the truth is precisely that back and forth process.
So it's left to a comedy show to point out the absurdities posing as statistics that our sober-sided politicians spout on a daily basis. And, incidentally, to other mediums, like say, the Internet, which to this day is largely made up of the written word. It's here, on the Internet, that we can have the necessary back and forth discussion to actually get at the truth.
You say the Daily Show is crap, I say it's not, you quote detailed samples, I use your own samples to point out the equivalent dearth of fact on other shows, and the people reading this thread will probably be left with an impression that more closely approximates reality than they possibly could have by watching a TV show about it.
And they can read the whole thread without commercial interruption.
Sometimes I think broadband is the last thing we need. It kept video out for decades, which was all to the good.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a modern "Not Necessarily The News".
Not really, the modern "Not Necessarily The News" is The Onion News Network [theonion.com].
Craig Ferguson seems like a better source of news than most "news" shows...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They've done studies on comparing those who watch The Daily Show with those who watch news on Fox, CNN, and NBC. Those who watch The Daily Show are better informed.
The interesting thing is that they often tell a very serious story in a funny way. For example, Jason Jones was in Iran during the electoral turmoil, but was (in addition to covering the election) having lots of discussions with ordinary Iranians which were countering the whole "all Iranians hate America" propaganda. By contrasting the very reaso
Re:Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much. I always thought that the idiocy I saw on gaming forums in the 90s was harmless because it was contained in videogame forums. I mean, things as stupid as platform wars would go away once people would discuss serious things like the federal budget, right? The yahoos going "Nintendo 4eva!" would disappear, right?
I'm pretty convinced now that I was wrong on that. The political discourse I'm seeing now uses the same terminology and rhetorical constructs as those used in the platform wars. It's all hot air, partisanship and arguing by putting others down. Using twitter comments on the air is worsening the discourse because it merely gives an official outlet to a lot of people who really have no clue, don't know they have no clue, and don't even care they have no clue. But they are now convinced that because they either got on the air or someone they agree with got on the air means that this is the same as Kissinger agreeing with them.
I'm not saying that Twitter can't be used to send interesting comments. I'm saying, however, that Twitter is used by the media in the worst possible way right now: to further turn news into entertainment of the worst kind: reality TV.
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Then your opinions will be just as knee-jerk and uninformed as those of the people you're berating. The only difference is that you're keeping them to yourself instead of inflicting them on everyone else.
It takes work to keep yourself informed, and since the news media is more interested in advertising revenue than informing the public, that work now has to be done by you (and me, and anyone else who wants to know more than the superf
Re:Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Most web commenting is pretty ridiculous amateur-hour nonsense. Its housewives and teens giving us their "wisdom." Web forums have been politicized by partisans. Fringe nutters have turned everything into their own PR outlets.
Slashdot is slightly better than the youtube/twitter rabble because its a site focused on technology (usually) and has a moderation system. A general news site with any sort of moderation? Madness. I can tolerate slashdot, metafilter, and most of reddit. Everything else is so terrible it makes you realize that crap like "OMG Ghost hunters is the REALZ" or "Vaccines cause autism!!!" is how a lot of people think and critical thinking and a little literacy are the exception, not the norm.
Dahl is right. While the media needs a check agaisnt bias and poor reporting, I doubt these twitter comments are helping. Looks like they are just lowing the signal to noise ratio even more. I guess anything to help make Wolf Blitzer look smart. I guess Neil Postman has finally been proved right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Comments (Score:5, Funny)
What a typical left-wing liberal comment. The government lets people like you post freely to the internet, so how can we trust them to run our healthcare system? I guess that's what you get when you vote a socialist Muslim Kenyan national into the White House.
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How on God's Earth do you manage to tolerate "most of Reddit"?
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Concur.
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I think I found your problem.
CNN is in 4th place right now. They are desperate. Last month, they were not in the list of the 30 most watched cable channels for the first time.
They're all terrible. Mostly it's simple facts: there isn't 2 hours of news most days, let alone 24. If you had really good reporters digging for weeks you could get some good content, but that would be really expensive. It's eas
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If I'm watching CNN from TV, I'm looking for intelligent, fact-checked news and opinions from professionals,
That's why I stopped watching CNN on TV. The news/fluff ratio is just above that on E!
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They are not about facts, news or being intelligent. Did you see CNN's coverage of the balloon boy fiasco?
The Corporate News is about entertainment, giving the viewers what they want to see and making money.
Re:Comments (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. When you find any, let me know, will you?
Who's Steve Dahl (Score:4, Insightful)
and why should I care...?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Long time Chicago DJ and part of the radio team that blew up part of the Chicago White Sox basefield to protest disco - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He failed. Disco never died-out. It was replaced with freestyle, then dance-rap in the 90s, and now we have Rhianna and Lady Gaga creating songs that sound very similar to the old 70s stuff, just with better synthesizers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
... just with better synthesizers.
Define better.
Peace,
The Analog Snob
Re:Who's Steve Dahl (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh man, makes me wish I hadn't posted above so I could mod you Insightful.
Re:Who's Steve Dahl (Score:4, Informative)
Close. Steve Dahl is a former #1 rated daytime talk radio host turned weekly columnist for the Chicago Tribune when his the balance of his contract was bought out and a non-compete in place during a radio format change. His contribution to history was the 1979 riot at Cominsky Park during a double header intermission. The riot occurred during the Disco Demolition entertainment event when a large pile of records (discounted admission if you brought a record) was exploded in center field.
I think Steve Dahl would agree that your statement is only 2/3rds correct.
a better statement
A professional idiot with a Mac and a DSL
The flip side to this whole thing (Score:3, Insightful)
mmmmmm (Score:2, Funny)
but half baked opions taste so good.
No it should not matter. (Score:5, Informative)
I would say that Edward R Murrow is rolling in his grave, but he was cremated.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
picking a station that validate one's political views
This is pretty much the crux of it. People actively seek out the information sources (radio, TV, internet) that support the opinions they already hold. Accuracy of information and facts run a distant second, and meaningful analysis runs an even more distant third.
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Agreed. I tell my 12 year old to question all news, and more importantly, to realize that "to yell is to sell", [fear that is]. I turned my TV off after the Nov election. I watch movies and foxnews.com. The only reason I choose Fox is because I don't like the lock CNN has in the airports. I travel every week and it isn't fair that I am forced to watch CNN. Hey slashdot, someone write a map app showing "quiet" spots in airports. Thats where I sit.
Up to 30k [wikispeedia.org]
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Three words (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Three words (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of folks consider NPR to be a tool of the liberals.
A lot of folks are ignorant paranoids who think ALL media is a "tool of the liberals" save Fox News and insurgent independent voices like Glenn Beck.
I doubt you'd won't find many Liberals who are content with NPR's efforts to provide liberal perspectives.
Re:Three words (Score:4, Insightful)
You're conflating two separate issues. NPR has a measurable liberal bias, but it's still generally quality, educated news. They don't tend to make shit up, or have a "youtube comments" equivalent section.
Publications like NPR or Reason are intentionally biased - but they're at least generally well-informed and factual, it's the base premise the authors are using and the conclusions they draw from the facts that is biased. It'd be awesome to have a source that is both quality and unbiased.. but I haven't found one.
CNN's twitter segments aren't usually particularly biased... but that doesn't make them any higher quality.
A simple solution (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
CNN, not CNN.com. They put these comments on the air all the time. When they should be, you know, reporting the news. Or better yet, investigating the news.
Re: (Score:2)
Um...
Don't like it, don't [watch] it.
That wasn't really outside the scope of your imagination, now was it?
As to what they 'should' be doing, that's for them and their advertisers to decide. Until they're the only game in town, I fail to see the conflict here.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee, I guess that when you personally are no longer watching CNN, then its shoddy reporting and "advocacy journalism" like Lou Dobbs has no remaining effect on the voting public, and thus you should no longer have any right to complain about it!
I bet you think that you strike a huge blow against a company when you boycott their products without any coordination with other potential buyers.
The ironing is delicious (Score:5, Insightful)
How funny is that: A guy airing his opinion on a public medium about how other people's opinions shouldn't be aired on public media...
We need a CNN story on this (complete with tweets) to bring things full circle.
-b
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
CNN Fake war coverage (Score:2, Informative)
whoops (Score:5, Insightful)
I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news [...]
Yeah, that's definitely where you went wrong.
Get Off Your Own Lawn Old Timer (Score:2)
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Irony or hypocracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
I find it amusing that there's an opinion piece that's against opinion pieces. What's Dahl's claim to lipping off "you aren't allowed to lip off?"
This was a gem (emphasis mine): "I was held accountable by management, listeners and, most important, advertisers."
That's the ugly of a Dahl editorial and the beauty of a slashdot comment -- you can voice your opinion here without anybody threatening to fire you because you spoke out against the status quo.
"When did public opinion merit the same amount of airtime as the actual story?"
When we got the internet. It used to be that only the rich could use the freedom of the press, because you had to actually own a press to have freedom of it. Now we, the people, have freedom of the press, too. The rich and the corporatti don't like us unwashed masses having a voice one bit.
Re: (Score:2)
While I completely agree that the internet, as cranky as it makes me, is a tremendous boon for freedom of the press and a platform for those that wouldn't otherwise have access to one, some context for the bit you quoted is needed:
pot kettle black (Score:3, Interesting)
The way I see it, Steve Dahl is nothing more than a bonehead with a DS-3 connection. What's the difference other than the number of readers and the username? Isn't Steve Dahl voicing his opinion? Isn't he just a person, and doesn't that mean you or I could post our opinions? What makes him so special?
Sure, there are some brain-dead yokels on both sides of the spectrum. There are the idiots who worship trees and think that trees feel and believe the "global warming" er "global climate change" chant without asking for the evidence and the raw data (okay, I admit I'm a skeptic given the revelation of how temperature sensors are installed now vs. 40 years ago and what the guidelines dictate. Too many are installed over or next to heat sinks). Then, there are those on the right who pick and choose what to believe in Christianity, you know, pick the part about man having dominion over the earth but ignore the part about being good stewards, etc.
Both extremes of the spectrum should be totally ignored. Use your brain people, moonbats and neo-cons alike! We each have the biological equivalent of a cluster of supercomputers in our head for a reason: to use it! THINK! However, that still doesn't mean every moron doesn't have the right to voice an opinion.
That is just the reality of it when you open your news site up to comments. You're going to invite the whole spectrum, and the sad thing is both moonbats and neocons are equally stupid in equally loud ways, so their posts stand out.
Including this post. ;)
"Value add" of a news organization? Editing. (Score:2)
I understand that 24 hours news sites need to fill a lot of air time or that news web sites would like something new for you to look at each time you refresh but not everyone wants to follow the news as it happens and sort it out themselves.
Do you want to follow the balloon boy story, be fooled and then read about the sorted details as it unfolds... or maybe I just want to read about it a few days later wrapped (mostly) up.
Do you want to read the entire stream of new articles on digg.com when they have 0 di
seconded (Score:2)
CNN has become 80% fluff. (Score:2)
It's about time someone said it (Score:2)
When CNN started broadcasting twit feeds, it just confirmed that they were desperate to fill up air time with any kind of cheap content they could grab. Bad enough that they were giving air time to uninformed idiots, it was uninformed idiots with a 140 character attention span.
I expect my news to bring me more information than I could get myself in the allotted time. When the attorney general (Canadian here) releases a report, reporters sequester themselves in a room for hours ahead of the press conference
People like yelling at the news. (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember my Dad Yelling at the TV for whenever those Darn Democrats did A n y t h i n g . And if the news covered too much positive that those darn Democrats did he would change the channel. Hence why like only watches Fox news now... However with CNN just posting the comments from other people it allows think their views have meaning and they may get 2 seconds of fame if they actually read them on the air. They will probably still stick to the station and watch it.
Just like in the old Roman Days right before the collapse lets hide all the problems of the world and give them a good show. As long as they are kept entertained they wont revolt.
Not really new news . . . (Score:2)
Seen the movie Network . . .?
"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people." P.T. Barnum
duh-duh-duh dat's all folks!!!!!!
He's right (Score:2)
It's a joke. Why the hell would I want to watch a TV newsperson read a web page or twitter feed? It's just dumb. Putting them in front of giant touch displays is also stupid. I don't want to watch someone operate a computer - actually put the damn graphic on the viewer's feed so we can see it straight on without some blow-dried suited idiot in front of it.
Irony (Score:2)
CNN seems to have this "child-like wonder" with tech at the moment.
I was somewhat sickened during the recent unrest in Myanmar, because CNN, rather than focus on the actual issue, seemed more obsessed with extolling the virtues of mobile phones and remote Twittering.
That and Christiane Amanpour coaxing people around the world to say "bloody murder" on camera in the name of investigative journalism, which reminded me of the Southpark episode where they used the word "shit" 162 times (complete with counter at
Opinions are like buttocks (Score:2)
only those which are well-formed should be shown in public.
William
Why they started doing it... (Score:2)
I think around the time CNN saw Fox staking out the conservative-centric news angles, and MSNBC staking out the liberal-centric news angles they knew they were somewhat screwed. In at attempt to differentiate themselves they embraced the "let the people own it" mantra and started up all the tweeting crap and the iReporter stuff.
They're trying to find a niche, and not doing a good job of it if you go by the ratings. Unfortunately they have been the closest left to a "neutral" cable news channel. If they g
Bad Expectation (Score:3, Insightful)
I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news
That is his first problem right there. They don't gather news, they gather entertainment and they present that entertainment with whatever spin they feel will best cause the effect they're looking for whether that be sympathy, outrage, shock, etc.
Don't get me wrong either, I'm not saying CNN is the only one like this and this isn't a political viewpoint where I'm categorizing news media into good, bad, left, or right. I'm saying all "news" programs are like this and have been this way for a while.
As for the public interaction via Twitter I don't see how that is a bad thing. In fact I think its a great way for them to keep in contact with their audience, live, and get the pulse of the public. I think it's great that someone at CNN is at least making an attempt at keeping up with some current technology trends and have found a way to use it as a possibly useful communication tool.
Twitter is not the problem (Score:5, Informative)
Jon Steward has something to say about the problem [thedailyshow.com]
Opinion (Score:5, Insightful)
Was it ever any better? (Score:3, Interesting)
I often wonder if the news was ever any better. I read recently in, I think, Time magazine an article about newspapers from the 1920s. They would also back candidates and bad mouth the opponents, take political sides when reporting stories (and which stories to report), etc. Nothing has changed there. I don't imagine papers weren't "making news" back in the day either -- it's hardly a novel idea. They need to sell papers and, just like Slashdot, there are slow news days. So you go and interview a politician or police captain or waitress and you hope that something more interesting comes out of it. If not, you have a nice "people" piece. But there wasn't any news until you started asking.
With the Internet news, it's likely not any different, it's just faster. 24 hour news can't possibly generate enough facts to keep people going, so even the "famous" journalists like Anderson Cooper are left with filling in the gap with their faces and open mouths. "Gosh, I remember when I was sick with the flu. I coughed and coughed. Really hurt. Really hurt my ribs when I coughed like that. With the flu. So...uh...so you don't want it. The flu. Or to cough."
I read Time magazine (paper edition) because they usually have one or two long, decently-researched articles (thrown in between what are essentially headlines for the rest of the "news" and some opinion pieces). Anything online is essentially under-researched nonsense -- I'd rather see constant updates, then, after a week, see a full write-up on the situation with sources, quotes, facts, etc. Let me know what's going on, as you hear it, but give me the NEWS at some point instead of just a bunch of repeated text.
Know-it-alls & Bone-heads (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes the know-it-alls and bone-heads that work in the news any better than know-it-alls and bone-heads who don't?
Most media people you see day-to-day have the mistaken impression that they actually know WTF they're talking about. Unfortunately, they don't.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What makes the know-it-alls and bone-heads that work in the news any better than know-it-alls and bone-heads who don't?
Most media people you see day-to-day have the mistaken impression that they actually know WTF they're talking about. Unfortunately, they don't.
Those know-it-alls and bone-heads have research teams backing them up.. oh wait a minute they fired those guys and either regugitate press releases or just make crap up.. carry on!
Re:It's the economy stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, the BBC are prime offenders at this vox populi crap too. Quite apart from the prime idiocy on display on their "Have Your Say" comments pages, they practically plead for viewers to text or email their views which they then proceed to display and read out live on air. Obivously this is driven by their need for content, any content to fill airtime on their 24-hour news channel, but it is ridiculous that they stoop to parroting some randomly selected half-wit's opinion on complex issues.
Re: (Score:2)
But... If you disagree with the experts it means the experts are part of the conspiracy. Or they their bias is politically motivated. Because everyone has to be a Democrat or a Republican. There is no way some one can be both Pro-Life and Support tighter regulations on financial companies.
About 1/2 of the Population has below average intelligence. This half has a hard time realizing that people are not always pigeon hole into a group, there are only 2 sides to a problem. Meaning if they disagree with you
Re:Who again, is watching CNN? (Score:5, Interesting)
CNN siding with democrats?
"I just got back from Washington DC at a huge protest."
A protest engineered and promoted by an ultra-right propaganda network for half a year.
"The lone dissenter to these guys is Fox News; funny how 'the fringe' has a typical FOUR TIMES the ratings of this and other, lesser outlets."
Those ratings are less indicative of the popularity of their viewpoint and more indicative of just how horrible the alternatives are. If I had a choice between a yugo and walking, i'd choose the yugo too!
please go back to your bunker, the rest of us in the real world want the government to step in to put a long overdue stop to the insurance industry's "death panels". According to the dingbat right, apparently corporations can never, ever do harm!