What CNN really doesn't want you to know

I was watching CNN last night, and I noticed that Anderson Cooper's prime time show must have made the comment "the best news team/best political news on television" so many times that I lost count. What I found even more interesting was the next day in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/business/media/27rating.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1256666567-ru7DyOrsxx5q0hBtzHH67Q) in which it was pointed out that CNN comes dead last of all the cable television news programs, in almost EVERY category. I noticed that CNN's page has no link to this story at all. Couldn't find it anywhere. You might kinda wonder why they might want to avoid revealing that fact to potential subscribers.

Turns out Fox News is beating them on practically ever front. Andersoon Cooper was dead fourth. Studio execs for CNN kept stating that Cooper was their strongest news hitter. Turns out he's not. He got beat by Nancy Grace's RECAST of her show from an earlier period.

I've always found Anderson Cooper an interesting entity because I really think CNN thought he was their cool guy for young people to watch, but never actually tested him on the demographic. Just sort of assumed he'd draw in the numbers. And then when that didn't happen, they thought he'd bring in the older crowd because of his news gumption skills. Funny, but that didn't happen either. To me, he always seemed like a nice guy with no real purpose that people kept hoping would come into his own because he's like the guy who is married to the owner's daughter. You want him to do well, only because it might hurt the marriage. Except, I don't think he's married to anyone important at CNN, so that doesn't work out that way.

Oh well. Good luck next time, CNN.

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CNN's Recent Move to Cover All Things Latino

I know this is going to immediately appear politically incorrect or ethnically-challenging, but at what point did CNN become the Latino Awareness Station? It seems only yesterday that Latino organizations were calling for the skewering of Lou Dobbs and CNN for its continuous, vitriolic series of attacks on illegal immigration, and now the front page of CNN wouldn't be any more Hispanic promoting, even if was covered with interactive pinatas. On the front page today (October 22), there are articles exclaiming:

Killing puts focus on crimes against Latinos
In depth: Latino in America
Commentary: But what's a Latino?
CNN Wire: Top Mexican Cartel Leader
Share Your Reaction (to Latino in America)
Soledad O'Brien Reports (on Latino in America)
Incentives Draw Latinos to Miltary Service
Latinos in America: Meet the Garcias
Latinos in America: Full Coverage
Should Mexico Mess with corn genes?

If this was an article by someone who was racist or ethnically-challenged, the article would now go off on a rant of how the news media is forgetting whites or some equally stupid direction, so let's leave that distraction for those who think in such limited fashion. Instead, I'd like to focus on why CNN is now going off on this particular area of reporting. In other words, let's study it from a communicative media perspective.

I can think of a hypothesis or two that might make sense. How about the obvious?

Hypothesis 1. In order to respond to negative comments from Latino viewers, CNN is now attempting to appear more favorable towards Latinos.

Okay, this is a good hypothesis for our purposes, although it's not completely correct, mainly because it is a big lacking. Yes, CNN is probably responding to the negative commentary it received from its viewers, but it is not much of a stretch to assume that a lot of those comments came from people who were not normally viewers of CNN. After all, Lou Dobbs has been doing his schtick for some time now, and people generally don't subscribe to services that work against them and their beliefs.

Hypothesis 2. CNN was attacked seriously over its coverage of illegal immigration in Lou Dobbs's segments that studio executives realized how many Latinos were out there potentially available for watching, so they're now trying to tap that market.

This makes a lot more sense, even if it's not worded the best it could be for a hypothesis. Think about it. Lots of people have been complaining about CNN, and as more and more people heard about the negativity of Dobbs and his show, more people must have been contacting CNN. Somewhere down the line, a studio executive had to put some figures together to realize that there were a lot of potential viewers out there who might start watching CNN. But they wouldn't watch ONLY if CNN toned down the rhetoric. But they had to do something to actually attract the demographic population. So what better than to pull out one of their long term reporters, Soledad O'Brien, a Latino, and then start producing content around the idea that CNN is a Latino-positive station?

It might work. There are some problems, however. As much as I hate to say it, the more content that exists that tries to attract Latinos might actually serve to push away non-Latino populations, which right now make up the majority of the viewer audience. So, CNN is taking a bit of a chance by focusing so much attention on one particular demographic. Sadly enough, Fox News actually attracts quite a bit of the already established demographic that CNN draws upon. If Fox News were to tone down its conservative rhetoric, it is quite possible that it might successfully take away most of the general viewership of CNN itself. Fox already has the advantage of placement, due to cable subsidiaries and Murdoch's ability to ease into such markets.

The next few months could prove to be very interesting for CNN because of the chances it is taking and how quickly the tide can turn based on any one decision.

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Dubious Milestones

Sometimes (okay, most of the time), I hate the media. Last night, the United States achieved the "milestone" of 4,000 soldiers dead in Iraq. EVERY news station is producing this story as if Paris has stolen Helen again and we all need to buy stock in Haliburton before they send KBR to Troy. What is it with our media and numbers? The guy who died at 3,999 is probably no less important than the guy at 4,000. Come to think of it, the one who died at 3,728 really haunts me night to night.

This is what happens when a news cycle really has nothing to say, so arbitrary numbers are chosen as news stories themselves. It's like turning the camera on a stop sign and stating that it's important to look at this stop sign because people who get into accidents by ignoring stop signs are out of control. It's a stupid stop sign. 4,000 is a number, not a story. Not an event. Not the rationale behind why we should have 8 hours of news stories all about meta stories (covering the media's coverage of the war, which is what they're doing right now).

Did something new happen in Baghdad? No, not really. Is the war turning in our favor? No, not really. Is it getting worse? No, not really. In other words, THERE IS NO STORY HERE.

Sadly, I covered this same problem at 3,000 casualties. No one cared then either.

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Ashley Alexandra Dupre: The sob story of prostitution

Well, they identified the call girl that brought down Governor Spitzer of New York. And while I generally read The New York Times, I have to admit they went overboard trying to make Ashley Alexandra Dupre (Kristen) the "victim" in this situation. She was a "$1000 an hour" hooker (in an establishment where they apparently have hookers working up to $4,300 an hour (I guess they wear party hats...I wouldn't know; I don't get out often). Now, they've tried to "humanize" her so that people will feel sorry for her because this big bad scandal has happened to her and it has interrupted her normal plan to bring peace to stuffed koala bears everywhere, or whatever it is she was planning with her myspace music career that will probably benefit from this rather than be hurt.

It's this sort of thing that leaves one wondering, why is it so necessary to give us the sob story of the poor little girl who is down on her luck (charging $4300 to have sex with a governor and knowing full well exactly what she was doing). And why should we really care?

Yeah, it bothers me that yet another girl got herself into this lifestyle. I used to see this CONSTANTLY at San Francisco State University when girls I knew would study feminist theory, convinced they were going to change the attitudes of men around the world, and then you'd find out they were paying their way through school by stripping at Mitchell Brothers in San Francisco or at one of the many other "fine" establishments that involve young, attractive women sitting on the laps of total strangers and getting them off. During one year, I discovered that of my female friends at SFSU, three were strippers at local sex clubs, two were professional dominatrices, one was a professional sex submissive, and two were straight out prostitutes (they preferred "call girls", which made them sound more respectable). Twice, I was called as their "one phone call" in the same week.

Kind of makes you wonder. Well, at least it makes me wonder.

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This Just In...Sex Sells!

CNN has gone ahead and presented yet another one of my pet peeves: Criticizing something but then turning around and doing it yourself but even worse.

Here's the news: The CEO of Victoria Secret decided that the blatant display of sexuality in their advertisements and specials was becoming a bit too risque. So, it was stated that Victoria Secret will tone it down. Well, leave it to CNN to broadcast their report where they spend the majority of the time playing the "this is a good thing because we're seeing too much" as they show nonstop footage of Victoria Secret models prancing around in their underwear. It's like protesting against pornography because it's too explicit, so you hold a pornography sit-in and show nonstop adult films to show everyone how raunchy it is.

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900 pound gorillas are the 900 pound gorillas in the room....

One phrase I'm REALLY getting tired of is the whole "it's the gorilla in the room" or "it's the 900 pound gorilla in the room". Okay, we get the point. It's a cool phrase, or at least it was back in the 20th century. This is one of those phrases used when the media goes on cruise control and doesn't actually have anything inciteful, or even USEFUL to say. A good example is yesterday when Heath Ledger died. It's sad. Sorry, he died. But the cookie cutter, fill in the blank news casts are driving me freaking nuts. No, this is NOT the worst tragedy since Kurt Cobain. No, Heath Ledger wasn't a young Marlon Brando. He had one connected movie that got him noticed. Most of what he did in the past was trashy movies. A Knight's Tale should have actually got him deported. But yes, it's unfortunate that a young actor, just starting out (a decade or so into his already established career) died. But he wasn't Sean Connery, Robert Redford or even Paulie Shore. He was a somewhat okay actor that died earlier than he should have.

Can we PLEASE lose the insulting commentaries about how all the world is mourning this tragic loss. If the whole world was, that would be one thing, but the media is saying this stuff ONLY because this is what the media ALWAYS says. It's fill in the blank newscasting. This is the kind of crap that leads to what happened on 911. After the first plane hit the first tower, a newscaster was actually sitting in front of the camera saying "And this is when the healing must begin" as the second plane was still smashing into the next building. Cookie cutter journalism leads to people learning nothing from the news. But unfortunately, it happens more often than not.

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Why academia sometimes just fails

There's a communication theory called Third Person Effect, which argues that people believe the media does not influence themselves, but that it influences other people. So, the argument goes that because people are so convinced that others are influenced by media images and stories, but not themselves, obviously people are more influenced than they care to admit. Then, the literature makes a number of possible rationales behind this.

1. The human tendency to perceive the self in ways that make us look good or at least better than other people.

2. People are motivated by a need to control unpredictable life events. "By assuming that the self is not influenced by mass media, individuals can go about their days in a media-dominated world, using media, deriving gratifications and sensibly integrating media into their lives" (Perloff, 2002).

3. People are actually influenced by the media but cannot consciously acknowledge media influence.

4. Third Person Effect emphasize cognitive rather than motivational mechanisms. (other people can be persuaded, but not them)

5. Media schemas. (Passive sheep view of audience behavior)

6. People lack access to their own mental processes.

So, all these sound great, right? Well, what if I was to put forth a possibility that shows why NONE of them may be correct? What if I was to put forth a possibility that shows that the third person effect doesn't actually exist?

Well, it's easy. What if every person who is surveyed about media just doesn't understand what other people do or know? In other words, what if a survey person asks me about other people, and I just make assumptions based on not actually knowing. I assume that media influences other people, but even though I say it doesn't affect me, I assume it has to affect others. Well, what if I'm wrong? What if there's NO effect on third persons? What if the real "effect" is that people have no clue how media affects other people? In other words, if someone asks me if media affects me, I say no, it does not. If I'm asked if it affects others, instead of saying, well, it must, I guess, I say, "How am I supposed to know? If it doesn't affect me, it probably doesn't affect anyone else either."

Therefore, third person effect goes away completely. Instead, what we have is a media bias that believes that it has more of an effect than it does. What we really have is media driving media to convince itself that it's really the driving force behind the opinions of people when in reality, what is probably happening is that more and more people are just being exposed to this false information and accepting it because the media serves as an information depot, and not the driving force.

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Our national nightmare is over

Yes, the national nightmare is over. Paris has been freed. But you know what really gets my goat about this whole thing, aside from the overstated "why is this a story?"? What bothers me is the inability of the news media to come up with a title that's original.

Fox News: The Liberation of Paris
CNN: Paris Liberated
MsNBC: Paris Liberated, and then Paris in Summer.

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