Turner: CNN spends too much time on 'pervert of the day'

[Newsjock]

http://www.accessnorthga.com/news/ap_newfullstory.asp?ID=61301

The Associated Press - ATLANTA

CNN should cover international news and the environment, not the "pervert of the day," network founder Ted Turner said Wednesday as the world's first 24-hour news network turned 25.

... "I would like to see us to return to a little more international coverage on the domestic feed and a little more environmental coverage, and, maybe, maybe a little less of the pervert of the day," he said in a speech to CNN employees outside the old Atlanta mansion where the network first aired.

... His remark won applause and laughter from CNN employees, but the moderator for Turner's remarks, CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour, said, "But everyone else is doing that. Why do you think it's important not to?"

Turner replied, "Somebody's got to be a serious news person. Somebody's got to be the most respected name in television news, and I wanted that position for CNN.

more

[IChing]

1. you beat me to this headline

environmental coverage would be nice, labor news would be nice, health and science would be nice, the corruption of our nation would be nice.

[knowbody0]

2. i bet ted cannot bear watching CNN today

i remember 25 years ago when he gave the PEOPLE the gift of the news

[Supersedeas]

48. and neither can we.

[TheDebbieDee]

3. Ted Turner got what he wanted. For a long while,

CNN was the most respected in TV news/journalism. Then, in 1998, it started the slow, swan-dive into becoming the manipulative Mickey Mouse outfit (not to be confused with ABC News, which really is owned by Mickey Mouse) that it is today!

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ElectroPrincess]

6. I remember when Ms. Amanpour was honest, she WAS a true Journalist

No more ... just another shameless corporate media wonkette.

[Rose Siding]

24. I think she was just drawing out his remarks with a question

-in her capacity as moderator. She's solid, imo.

[Kadie]

30. My thoughts exactly. n/t

[Cha]

31. Good! That, too, was the

impression I got from reading it.

She's married to Jamie Rubin.
http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/biographies/rubin.html

[okieinpain]

47. yes, she sat that one up nicely for ted to knock out of the park.

[girl gone mad]

45. She still is.

I'm certain that, as others stated, she was simply getting him to elaborate, not sharing her own opinion.

[Robeson]

8. Yes, that was a very disappointing comment she made....

...almost sounds like something a kid would say. Wow.

[cvoogt]

11. don't be too hard on her

by asking that she elicited a response from him. as moderator she couldn't spout her own opinion, which I do believe to be in line with Turner's, but she could get him to say it with a dumb-sounding question like that. That would keep the CNN censors at bay.

[Pirate Smile]

18. I bet she was just looking for his response to that argument. She

has been very critical of the media over the last few years. I don't believe that has changed.

[ElectroPrincess]

36. She sold out ... she was once honest - no mas. Sorry but she's bought

and paid for ... no longer objective.

[Triana]

12. Exactly. "But everybody else is doing it..."

...is an incredibly juvenile response. Maybe she felt it was necessary to get a response back from Turner, as the person below suggested, but damn, seems to me she could have found a less airheaded, juvenile question than that to do it.

My response has some history to it. I used to subscribe to a local newspaper and in rather short order, got sick of their toeing the Puke Party Line. I cancelled the sub and wrote them and told them why. Their response: "We report the same news stories in the same ways everyone else does."

¿

I wrote them back and told them THAT IS THE PROBLEM, and told them to stuff their goddamned paper where the sun will never shine.

Idiots.

[KittyWampus]

14. And Then She ASKED A QUESTION! But You're Too Busy Being Oh So Clever

and smug.

She went on to ask 'why is important NOT TO'.

You don't even know the context of her comments.

MAYBE she was trying to draw Turner out a bit and was, like, interviewing him.

[Eloriel]

22. EXACTLY -- and her critics need to see THIS

Amanpour is actually one of the few "good guys" -- and ACTUALLY trying to effect change even while still employed (got to be quite a tightrope to walk):

Christiane Amanpour: "Extracting the maximum profit from the news is immoral and dangerous."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3464990

[Merope215]

43. Hey, thanks

I was the OP for that story you linked, and while I would certainly hesitate to vouch for someone's goodwill and intellectual integrity, especially someone I've never met, she struck me as entirely sincere. I agree with you - she is definitely one of the good guys.

[emcguffie]

21. That's exactly how interviewers do it.

That way they are not suggesting the answer. It's up to the interviewee to say, no, that's no good....

[KittyWampus]

13. Do You Even Know The Context She Was Speaking In? No, You Don't

and your comment is totally offensive.

[radar]

5. Just like lemmings...

CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour, said, "But everyone else is doing that. Why do you think it's important not to?"

Reminded me of John Stewart's analogy on his show calling the MSM a bunch of kids in a soccer game just chasing the ball en masse.

[KittyWampus]

16. There's Not Much To Be Said For The DU'ers Who Are Reading Their

own bullshit into a reporter's comments without knowing the context and which sounds to me like she was leading Turner into a more DETAILED answer... you know, like REAL journalists do.

[radar]

23. Well - why don't you point out the context...

...And the follow up question?

Since I'm not a REAL journalist I only have access to the article linked at top.

Of course, being so much smarter than me - maybe you can explain what my lemmings remark was directed towards?
Couldn't be more than 1 possible scenario or objective - could there?

[ovidsen]

37. It's called being a devil's advocate.

It doesn't take a real journalist to grasp that concept. But some brains might help.

[radar]

39. Hey, thanks for that thinly veiled insult

"some brains might help"
Since you've obviously got plenty - you no doubt can comprehend my "lemmings" post was pointed to the journalistic body as a whole - not one specific journalist; as touched on in the John Stewart analogy.

...However, it seems that including Christiane Amanpour in the quotation about "everyone else is doing it," ilicited an attack upon me to which I responded with a bit of sarcasm.

Good thing there are brainiacs around to keep us lower intelligent types in our place & correct any transgressions.

[ovidsen]

40. What's the difference between sarcasm and an insult?

Not much.

[Iowa]

29. I read her question the same way you did...

...that she was trying to get him to say more about the dismal state of CNN. But I can see how someone could presume the opposite in view of the typical CNN style - to aggressively neutralize ANY progressive/intelligent comment or opinion. I don't think this happens to be one of those times, but in general terms, any derisive comment lobbed at CNN is richly deserved.

[pretzel4gore]

25. and the game's fixed

that's the part that gets me: them ninnies chasing a ball in a fixed game!

[SlipperySlope]

7. Ted may know something...

He had his finger on the pulse of what people wanted then, maybe he knows what people want now. The people are restless.

[Tigress DEM]

44. Maybe his ex-Jane Fonda shamed him about his co-founder's...

remarks. CNN Co-Founder Reese Schonfeld, said on May 16th, during an appearance on The Big Story with John Gibson that the roles of the media and the Pentagon in time of war is to lie. ***

Because of that very public remark, maybe Ted is doing some damage control - or - could we dare believe??? Is he actually getting some cajohnes?

If CNN wants to be a real news station, I would pay to watch them. I would recommend them to my friends, but they have to do it all the way, no half assed Namby Pamby Radio attitude about it. This country needs real reporters allowed to report the truth so we can get this out of control government in check while we still have a country to repair.

BushCo has us in hock to our eyeballs. Rethugs are teaching their kids Chineese because they say it's the language of the future.


***
http://www.newshounds.us/2005/05/24/reese_schonfeld_cofounder_of_cnn_says_the_public_does_not_have_a_right_to_know.php

<clip>
GIBSON: You're saying that editors should, and in fact, do make calculations about whether people are going to live or die because of the revelations they're about to make and that this was one in which editors should have foreseen just what happened.

SCHONFELD: Sure. What, what difference ... Absolutely. Everyone knows or should know, if they know anything about the Arab world or the Muslim world, how holy the bible is - their Koran - is to them and how inflammatory a statement that we had desecrated it, flushed it down the toilet or whatever would be in that world and someone should have said: Well, what real difference does it make if we report that or don't report that. And should never have reported it. But if you were even gonna consider reporting it, well, I don't, I don't even - I wouldn't even consider reporting it. I would have sat there in the chair and said "No, this doesn't go in the story." Period.

GIBSON: OK, but would you have - by that same reasoning would you have not reported Abu Ghraib if somebody had brought you those pictures.

SCHONFELD: Abu Ghraib is the greatest foul up of all time. Those pictures were on the internet. The problem is not that we were - we - I only wish the Pentagon could have been able to deny that story, to be able to li - that's the right of the Pentagon to lie, when it is in the country's best interest to lie, you do lie. And when I made that statement in my book, an undersecretary - well - at Defense told me I don't have it quite right, the - uh - Rumsfeld, the Secretary can never lie but any, anybody under him can, that you have to do it when it's in the public, in the government interest.

[IChing]

9. "You know, we have a lot of perverts on today"

(I thought they were just media whores, but ok)


," and I know that, but is that really news? I mean, come on. I guess you've got to cover Michael Jackson, but not three stories about perversion that we do every day as well."

On the other hand was he talking about just the stories or the corespondenents?

[Pirate Smile]

10. Turner said this to Wolf yesterday during one of Leslie's shows and

Blitzer said that starting in a week or so CNN will be having an hour or so of their International coverage run on the US CNN during the day.

That sounds like good news from what I've heard about CNN International.

[Triana]

17. I hope so...I don't watch TeeVee...

...but friends and family do and I have to endure the trashTV crap everytime I visit. It's absolutely nauseating what people watch and listen to these days. No wonder we have a vacuum-packed idiot duJour in the White House. The whole mentality of it is part of the problem, and I cannot subscribe to it.

Less TrashTV will be a good thing, though I'll still never watch CNN. The MSM has to go through a complete 180 urban renewal revolution before I'd even begin to consider ever patronizing their programming again.

I've evolved, as most DUers have. Too bad so many TrashTV addict sheeple haven't - and they vote. GWB is the result.

[chalky]

34. I wonder what bits from CNN International they'll pick to show?

Will we just end up with a parade of worldwide perverts?

[Rose Siding]

15. At noontime, Phillips ran a clip of Turner

Part of the 25 yr deal- may have been taped. He was talking about how proud he was of the rep they'd built and how they'd have to work to keep it.

Right after the clip, the anchor teased an "upcoming" story with footage about a squirrel with a lollipop. No kidding.

Yesterday, at about the same time of day, Chopra told Kyra Phillips that the day before, 20 thousand children died of poverty, the same amt will die tomorrow- That's news too, but isn't reported, he said. Then, the *next* story story up was about monkeys, I think. Or cats.

[Dying Eagle]

19. Thank You Mr. Turner

:kick: for TT

[Tigress DEM]

42. Ya' know, Pope Benedict gives me the creeps. Now I know why.

Thanks for the side by side view.

[ReadTomPaine]

46. I find your lack of faith disturbing.

[AuntiBush]

20. A "little more...!?!" How about "a lot more!"

Well Ted... how about it? Put your money where your mouth is. You did during the election if one "follows the money."

[Dudley_DUright]

26. Please buy back CNN Ted (or at least go half in with George Soros)

We really really need some reality based cable news and we need it NOW!

[0007]

27. Pervert of the DAY

is

How deaths today?

[AspenRose]

49. And sometimes networks hire perverts..."no spin zone,"anyone?

FALAFEL!!!

[Up2Late]

28. Amen Ted

Now Please use your Billions to buy it back!

[Roland99]

32. Ted should slapped the stupid outta her.

[sundancekid]

33. the clash of merger cultures lowered the original Turner vision and

level of competence ... I concur with the "c'mon, Ted, do it again!"

[GainesT1958]

35. Come to think of it..

I think ol' Ted is right about Darryn Kagan, too!:eyes:

B-)

[Supersedeas]

52. the pervert obsession is only one of their many problems

[Zen Democrat]

38. Hey, people, Christiane is one of the good newspeople ....

She was the ONLY journalist from CNN or FOX or MSNBC to complain about the drumbeat into the Iraq war. She came right out and said that she had been muzzled. Remember? It was quite a story in 2003.

Christiane was a long-time friend of JFK, Jr. and is married to Jamie Rubin.

The fact that Ted Turner had her moderating the thing should tell you something.

[dArKeR]

41. Ted also said people should visit forum Foreign Affairs & Defense!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=116

[lies and propaganda]

50. When she is cool with it....

we have pretty much completely lost the battle. wtf?

[question everything]

51. Bravo!

During CNN walking down memory lane week, Paul Zahn (I think) profiled Ted Turner. In the end she said that, after the US government, he is the largest land owner in the country with major holding in the mountain states (don't remember exactly which) and, he said, will never be developed.

He's better put this in writing, way way Wrigley did for Catalina. One never knows how the heirs would feel in 50-100 years.

[Straight Shooter]

53. I remember back when I was glued to the set because CNN was on.

Such a news junkie I was (still am), but back then CNN had class. Well, it's still got class, but it's low class, lower than a snake's belly in a wagon rut kind of class.

Ummm, Ms. Amanpour does not deserve the derogatory remarks. Her question was perhaps deliberately crafted as simple-minded, because its ultimate audience is the American public which seems to have the attention span and cognitive function of a 5-year-old.

[Skypilot 18]

54. pervert of the day ?

I think Ted misspoke. He must have meant pervert of the season.