MISCmedia for 10/17/00
Whither CNN?

WHEN I FIRST HEARD the news of the big Belgrade uprising, I instictually tuned to CNN--only to see a regularly-scheduled episode of TalkBack Live with Pat Buchanan's and Ralph Nader's vice-presidential running mates.

CNN's Headline News channel had its regular briefs about medical discoveries and education reform.

CNBC had its normal stock-market wheel. MSNBC could only be bothered with updates about the situation, briefly interrupting its normal daytime-talk discussion on improving one's parenting skills.

Only The Fox News Channel and BBC America were willing to interrupt their normal routines for the live riot footage CNN used to be known for.

CNN and MSNBC did get around, at the top of the hour, to covering the apparent downfall of Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic. But as the day went on, they (and Fox News Channel) kept up an annoying habit of treating the most important single world-news event so far this year as a sideshow to the day's previously scheduled "lead story"--the evening's forthcoming debate between Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman.

All the U.S. cable news channels under-reported the opposition takeover. But CNN seemed the most preturbed at this real-world interruption to its planned agenda.

In recent weeks, CNN has been shaken by management resignations and firings. These lead from the main CNN channel's downward drift in the ratings. During the stock-market madness this year, CNBC has had more daytime viewers than CNN. Fox News Channel often outdraws CNN in areas where both appear (it's still on fewer cable systems).

CNN seems today like CBS News has seemed for a while; as a slow-moving, square-thinking organization increasingly lost in a fast-moving world and a faster-moving news business. Fox News, with its outspokenly conservative talk hosts, and MSNBC, with its shameless exploiting of whatever's the current one over-reported story (e.g. Monica Lewinsky), have let the 20-year-old CNN seem positively stodgy.

But CNN could change, if it wanted to. And it doesn't have to wait for America Online to take over CNN's parent company, Time Warner.

CNN could take a cue from the BBC and reinvent itself as the "class act" of the cable news biz. That won't be cheap or quick. But it can be done. Dare to cover the big stories the other channels don't find sexy enough. Forego the noise and smoke for more thoughtfulness.

Will they do it? We'll have to see as the weeks and months go on.

The news continues.

TOMORROW: Fun at the High Tech Career Expo.

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