My email to CNN's "Situation Room".

[Jane Austin]

I am seeing this program for the first time today, and they've covered everything in the world except the protest outside Compound W.

Here's what I wrote them in the comments section of their poll on college mascots.

"Why are you covering mascots when there is a growing demonstration right outside Bush's Potemkin "ranch" by questioners of Bush's Iraq war?

If you want to be taken seriously, you need to cover the news."



(Edited to get the name of the show right.)

[newsguyatl]

1. blitzer's team of producers

running the show are the biggest bunch of rightwingers i've ever come across. and i do mean that with all honesty.

so don't expect anything of the show in terms of fairness of coverage.

they're pretty much a tv version of the drudge report.

oh and by the way, their show sucks in such a big way, that it's impossible to describe.

embarrassing is first word that comes to mind.

[asjr]

2. It is more of a Geraldo Rivera production. Blitzer sounds

like a carnival barker. Showing us the DEA room where no cameras have been before! Gee! Golly! Aren't we something! They have climbed the ladder to more exploitation and faux news. Sickening.

[newsguyatl]

4. well the ratings have been terrible

for the first two days -- down significantly from last year at this time, and down from what they were even last week.

6 months later, if this is still the case, the show will get the axe.

i don't expect it to get much better.

you can take but so much of wolf... and who the hell wants all that fucking chaos?

[mandyky]

5. Has situation room replaced inside politics?

I tuned in briefly last night and was shocked to see wolf.

[newsguyatl]

6. replaced

"inside politics," "crossfire," the last half hour of "live from" and "wolf blitzer reports"

smart move on the part of the company, eh? :eyes:

on edit: this show also caused a lot of folks at cnn to lose their jobs.

[mandyky]

9. I've all but given up watching CNN anyways

I watched Headline News until they started with Nancy Grace. I now watch MSNBC for the hour in the morning before hubby goes to work.
CSpan and online is where I get my news. Due to computer problems I can't listen to AAR, so I depend on DU and online blogs a lot.

[Tactical Progressive]

8. We should call CNN what it is - the Conservative News Network

That accurately conveys Fox 'News' position on the political spectrum as well.

Have you met these Blitzer producers or just know of them by reputation?

And if you have any inside insight into the CNN, how do the people at CNN feel about what's happened to them since say Walter Isaacson entered the picture? As near as I can tell the pundits themselves, and not just their producers, have shifted substantially rightward in the last ten years. That seems to be across the industry. It's hard to differentiate from the outside, but the pundits have seemed to have a dismissive and/or contentious tone towards any measure of progressive and are absolutely cowed by and sidle up to Republicans, from even before 9/11, and moreso afterwards of course. That's separate from the news stories that are covered and those that are ignored, the guests that are booked and those that aren't, the topics that are covered and the pre-planned questions that are asked. I usually assume producers play a large part in all of that. But both those structural decisions and the on-screen attitudes of the pundits - Chris Matthews being only the most over-the-top example - seem to both be well rightward now. Do you have any inside sense into that and does the industry recognize the shift, or are they so caught up in their own world that they can't see it?

[City Lights]

3. I just sent one too.

Why isn't "The Situation Room" covering the situation outside Compound W in Crawford, TX?

I'm guessing you'll start covering it the moment the pro-war crowd shows up.

Your network is a disgrace.

[Pithy Cherub]

7. Is Blister still using that lame, "it's hard news" line?

CNN is unable to do news and they want to prove it in ever more embarrassing ways...

Does Wolf Blister have to be on every day - maybe some money on a credible anchor would help!:eyes: