Goodbye CNN

I was a teenager during Panama’s darkest days under the Noriega dictatorship. During that time, CNN was our sole source of news about the real world—when we could get to it. (The regime would censor the news channel whenever negative news about Noriega were being broadcast. Fortunately we had friends with satellite dishes.) To us embattled civilians, CNN seemed the only trustworthy source of information.

Clearly those days are over. This is what cnn.com was featuring as its most important news items earlier today:

Anna Nicole on CNN

I’ve highlighted the items that could even remotely qualify as “news”; it represents a little over 4% of the total area given to the most important news of the moment.

Given the immense challenges we are facing today, CNN’s transformation into a gossip tabloid can only be called irresponsible. I guess dishing out the celebrity crap is more lucrative than reporting the news.

The only way for a free market economy to function well for its constituents is if they take their role as consumers seriously. So I’m voting with my eyeballs: goodbye CNN!

February 9, 2007 | Archived in Random Notes

3 comments

1
Katherin Michelle | 2-9-2007 at 4:39 pm

Eso no es nada, ver las noticias de CNN por TV es realmente sentarse a perder el tiempo. Y ni hablemos de la cobertura insultante que hace CNN del conflicto en el Medio Oriente. De mi lector de feeds desapareció desde hace mucho tiempo. Kisses ;) KM.
2
Chris | 2-10-2007 at 11:23 am

This truth was blatantly obvious when the tsunami hit…I was with a friend who’s brother was in Phuket, and finally at 6:00am it showed up on CNN TV, 2 hours after BBC online reported it, and about 4 hours and 30,000 deaths after it happened. It was horrible to sit through stories on grooming pets when you don’t know if a loved one is still alive…
3
Ken Furlong | 2-12-2007 at 12:16 pm

Yeah, I gave up on CNN a while ago for much the same reason.