CNN thought its biggest threat was FOX News. It was wrong. The competition is Twitter, and the competition is winning.
In 1980, CNN went live as America's first all-news TV network. It raised a fundamental question: Is there enough news worth watching to justify an all-news network? For years, CNN trudged along as an interesting experiment, more observed than watched.
Then came the first Gulf War. The first President Bush sent U.S. troops to battle on a scale not seen since the Vietnam War, and America became starved for news. Lots of news. From the ground. With live footage. Constantly.
The traditional network news couldn't satisfy our hunger for news of the war. Over the years they had whittled down their reporting staffs. And even with expanded coverage beyond the regular evening news, they just didn't devote enough air time to the war to satisfy the emerging hunger.
Enter CNN. CNN's enormous news staff and 24x7 air time for news suddenly became a major asset. CNN put reporters all over the region, who reported constantly on what was happening. Ratings surged. It became *the* place for news, because it was the only place to get the constant, immediate news from the ground that people craved. The Gulf War transformed CNN from interesting media experiment to "killer app".
Now it's happening again in Iran. Only this time, it's Twitter.
Iran's famously censored society makes it difficult for news organizations--CNN included--to operate there. The Iranian government has also been fairly successful in blocking local access to most websites that Iranians would typically use to share and broadcast information. Even CNN has been left behind.
But they can't stop Twitter.
Twitter's open architecture enables people to send and receive tweets via a range of other websites and SMS addresses. That makes it difficult for the government to keep up. And by posting under pseudonyms, Iranian commentators on the ground can build followership and credibility without disclosing their identities to authorities.
Like CNN during the Gulf War, Twitter has become the best source of direct, unfiltered, real-time information from the ground. Events in Iran have catapulted Twitter from interesting cultural phenomenon to killer app.
As I write this post, the featured story on CNN.com is: Pregnant Mom's Stabbing Still a Mystery. CNN looks old, tired, and late--just like the network news programs it supplanted 18 years ago.
The other day I was watching CNN which, like most other channels, had President Obama speaking about the health insurance objectives. I knew the gist of his message, having watched everything I could watch and read to that point. So I got curious about how many other news channels were carrying his speech: They were MSNBC, the Canadian BBC, all local news channels. The ONLY exception was Fox News.
And what was so important that it demanded immediate attention and was more important than health care for Americans?? Naming the craters of the moon. No kidding. Up on my television screen was a picture of the moon and the commentator was babbling on about the different "new" craters being named by scientists. As I tried not to go into shock, I wondered when was the last time that I saw Fox News cover anything scientific. I have an admirable memory, but it failed me at this time. Fox eschews global warming, the endangering of disappearing species because of planet pollution, overpopulation, etc, etc. But they chose that moment to lock in on the craters of the moon.
A news program gains its reputation from the news it chooses to cover, and that which it does NOT cover. Fox News sees our president as a nonentity and does not see him as newsworthy. What goes around comes around.
This country badly needs to return to the Fairness Doctrine. When the Fairness Doctrine was considered useless by the conservatives, what they really meant was that they would decide what news we would receive. Now, with the internet, they can no longer control what we have access to. But we need the Fairness Doctrine to create an even playing field over the networks. They can still present their point of view--it will just require that they give the opposing side a chance to have their say.
Please tell the public about the moonscape episode. Boo to Fox.
Kathryn Jean Minneman
email: kallen0943@gmail.com
Posted by: Kathryn Jean Minneman | September 19, 2009 at 06:30 PM