CNN
by Abagond
Cable News Network (1980- ), better known as CNN, is one of the three main cable news stations in the US. Although it has been rightly called the Clinton News Network, it is not as nakedly partisan as MSNBC (Democratic) or Fox News (Republican).
- Ownership: Time Warner, a top donor to Hillary Clinton.
- Location: Time Warner Center in New York.
- Political viewpoint: White Liberal, very much in the vein of Hillary Clinton.
- Viewers: 1.06 million daily viewers (2017), well behind MSNBC (1.65m) and Fox News (2.35m), but more than double its numbers five years ago, thanks mainly to Donald Trump.
- Fans: part of the media diets of Terry McMillan and President Trump.
- Trust: As of July 3rd 2017, 91% of Democrats trust CNN more than President Trump, but only 9% of Republicans do.
Some tropes I have noticed:
- He said, she said – stories are often framed as two opposing points of views. This allows CNN to avoid coming down on one side or the other and therefore seem “fair”. It also lends itself easily to:
- panel discussions – CNN will present a story and then get several talking heads to comment on it. The range of opinions is somewhat broader than on MSNBC or Fox News, which are often little more than partisan echo chambers. But much of CNN’s discussion is screwed up by:
paid trolls – CNN seems to have a Jerry Springer model of television: put people together on stage who you know will get into an argument. They pay people like Jeffrey Lord (pictured) who they know will troll the discussion rather than offer any kind of serious insight.- Kellyanne Conway – a Trump adviser who they repeatedly have on even though she lies and avoids answering questions.
- tweetology – they go nuts over Trump’s tweets.
- Broken Africa – war, famine, poverty, etc, seem to be only stories in Africa worth covering.
- Islamophobia – most of the killers they feature seem to be Muslims who kill White people.
- US imperialism – CNN was a big cheerleader for the Gulf War and the Iraq War.
- Disappearing Indian Trick – Did they even cover #NoDAPL?
- Black pathologies – more common before 2012?
- Missing White Women – common before 2006. They got heat for only covering missing people who were pretty White women, so it seems they stopped covering missing people altogether.
Coverage:
- Black Americans: Unlike Fox News, MSNBC or RT, CNN has a regular evening news show hosted by an actual Black person, Don Lemon. He is a coon, but he does regularly have on intelligent Black (Liberal) people who talk about more than just “Black” issues. That puts him leagues beyond anything else on US television, news-wise, outside of Trevor Noah and Roland Martin. But that is not saying much.
- The 2016 election: Even though CNN favoured Hillary Clinton at the political level, they wound up giving Donald Trump way more free television time because he was great for ratings. So great, in fact, that at one point they showed his empty podium live rather than a speech Bernie Sanders was giving at the same time.
Abagond conveniently posts his review of CNN, which he compares favorably to RT, and which, since he has banned me and resw, there is no danger of his assessment being seriously challenged. Whereas he was quick to proclaim RT propaganda, without proof, there is no mention of CNN being a bulwark of the vast mainstream media propaganda matrix, of which there is ample evidence.
And he certainly didn’t mention that CNN is a military psyop (Alexander Cockburn).
This part is particularly amusing.
Black Americans: Unlike Fox News, MSNBC or RT, CNN has a regular evening news show hosted by an actual Black person, Don Lemon. He is a coon, but he does regularly have on intelligent Black (Liberal) people who talk about more than just “Black” issues.
So the only regular black on CNN is a ‘coon’ and Abagond thinks that that is better than no black presence at all. Actually its worse. It puts a black face on imperialism’s propaganda which makes it more palatable to black people, just as Barack Obama’s presidency made imperial depredation acceptable to the majority of black Americans. Black coons in high places is a form of social control and engineering of the black populace. It’s much more dangerous -much worse- than having no blacks at all.
he does regularly have on intelligent Black (Liberal) people who talk about more than just “Black” issues.
Heck, you can get a white talking head to talk about ‘more than just “Black” issues.’ You don’t need a coon for that.
No, Abagond. Banning me does not make you safe from my critique.
Aisle C 
CNNs journalistic integrity leaves a lot to be desired.
CNN Hires Top al-Qaeda Propagandist for Documentary
According to the Wikipedia page on Psyop (not the NYC/LA ad agency w/ the same name which has its own page there also… brilliant name for an ad agency btw!) US Govt Psychological Op sent those interns to NPR as well as to CNN. (I didn’t follow the reference links there yet to try to check the veracity… if that’s even possible given what we are referring to here). The clip you linked to is only about CNN.
Having been raised w/ the Stasi opening our mail to & from East Berlin & by a mother & grandmother who lived under the Nazis & my grandmother handed a piece of paper by the nursing home there who murdered her sister saying she died of pneumonia (you don’t get pneumonia OVERNIGHT… it’s like the “fell down the stairs” cause of death in South African Apartheid era prisons!) I trust no news source at face value.
This is also due to having grown up w/ US portrayal of Arabs in TV & Film not refecting how we are at home & w/ each other etc. (Please see the books & films of Lebanese American Jack Shaheen who just passed on this week: ‘The TV Arab'[book]; ‘Reel Bad Arabs'[book & film; on dvd & on Youtube now] etc.).
I have yet to read the article you linked to (The Nomad has been putting a LOT on my plate!) so if it mentions the interns also having been sent to NPR please forgive me for being repetitive.
” It puts a black face on imperialism’s propaganda which makes it more palatable to black people, just as Barack Obama’s presidency made imperial depredation acceptable to the majority of black Americans.”
Agreed.
nomad, at least you have the balls to allow dissenting views, can’t say the same for your pal resw, it suppressed my comments on its blog. Can’t say I’m surprised. Typical snitch behavior.
Your comments have posted, fyi. No need to derail this thread with your whining.
Abagond continues his campaign against Trump. Without pesky trolls like me pointing out that the evidence for Russia collusion is flimsy at best or nonexistent. Still, the troops are being rallied by such propaganda to impeach Trump.
Despite the complete absence of evidence Abagond logs one Trump is a Russian plant post after another. It used to be a black blog. Now its an anti Trump blog. Abagond is doing his part in the resistance.
I love his biased framing.
The corollary of that, Abagond, is that the majority of Trump voters, 65%, voted for him as the lesser of two evils; just as I said to you and your community. You are validating what I said and not what you had claimed; that virtually all Trump voters were racists. That is what you presumed.
“Presumed”. What an auspicious word. It is a blog of presumptions. Presumptions he goes on to support using the fallacy he so often warns about. Confirmation bias.For instance he presumed RT was propaganda; for months, it seems, without being able to prove it. His ‘proof’ consisted of redefining editorial bias as propaganda and continues to reference this ‘proof’ as if valid. Confirmation bias. Manipulating information in order to support a presumption.
@nomad
“It used to be a black blog. Now its an anti Trump blog”
Yes.
That’s a shame.
I haven’t been there in a few days, IIRC.
If I wanted to hear people whinge about Trump every day I’d tune into CNN or Colbert.
Life goes on.
With Obama as president how many questionable police shootings and acquittals were there?
How many wars of imperialism and clandestine destabilizations of sovereign nations?
@nomad
“I love his biased framing”
I found that much of abagond’s argumentation is the definition of “confirmation bias”. Essentially, the baseless assumption that only racist Trump voters don’t believe Trump/Russia [and only non-racists believe it] is the foundation on which his conclusion is based.
I’m irritated by Trump/Russia because it’s such an obviously concocted story that is being pushed as fact. Blaming American racism and misogyny didn’t stick because an external bogeyman works better. Yet it is simply an attempt to absolve the Democrats, who blew it, of responsibility for losing. Even if “Russia hacked the election” [receipts please] it happened on Obama’s watch not Trump’s. How did Trump facilitate it?
crickets chirping
@”Abagond conveniently posts his review of CNN, which he compares favorably to RT, and which, since he has banned me and resw, there is no danger of his assessment being seriously challenged”
+1000. The timining is convenient, isn’t it?
“Whereas he was quick to proclaim RT propaganda, without proof, there is no mention of CNN being a bulwark of the vast mainstream media propaganda matrix, of which there is ample evidence”
+1000. Emphasis on “ample”. Yet he can’t give us a single example of RT propaganda. But asking for it makes us “Russian trolls”.
“So the only regular black on CNN is a ‘coon’ and Abagond thinks that that is better than no black presence at all. Actually its worse.”
Precisely! And the black people he invites on the show usually if not always share his viewpoint.
And some might remember how I was attacked by abagond’s lynch mob when I once used the word “coon”. But not a word from from them about abagond saying it.
#hypocrisy
Here’s a genuine black journalist on RT, as opposed to a ‘coon’ on CNN. Watch Ashlee Banks in the first part of Watching the Hawks.
Wow, someone on TV actually putting context around Chicago’s homicides including the high African American unemployment rate, underemployment, poverty, inequality, etc. and police’s role in exacerbating things.
In just a few minutes, I got more statistics about Chicago than a day’s worth of CNN programming.
Thats what ive saying about RT. “They finally hired a black person.”
Careful Resw… some people might continue to accuse you & Nomad of being Russian fairytale beings for watching RT…
@Zoe
I know…how dare I form an objective opinion about RT!
I dont watch “the news” regularly, so I missed this. Ashlee Banks has a weekly? segment on RT news called “Race in America”. Been on for a couple of months now, apparently. Just another contradiction to Abagond’s claim that RT is racist. Notice the ‘coon’ at CNN covers ” more than just “Black” issues”, Banks specifically covers race and she does so with a sharply critical eye. Sorry I was not aware of this segment earlier.
@Zoe
“They finally hired a black person.”
In case you didnt get the reference, thats what Abagond said when he first saw Ashlee on RT. “They finally hired a black person.”. At that point she had already been on RT for three years at least. As long as Ive been watching. Three years. Probably more.
The Nomad confuses & bests the Starship Captain again! You’re right Nomad — I didn’t know that as I didn’t pay oceans of attention to him (Absinthegone).
Not to mention there were other blacks like Edward Harrison who were with RT before abagond declared “they finally hired a black person…
Ashlee Banks has been with RT since October 2015.
She definitely is not the “black face of Imperialism”. I follow her on twitter.