CNN has been obsessed with the disappearance of Flight 370, but the ratings show there’s method in its madness By Jaime Weinman | Macleans – 2 hours 1 minute ago “CNN is still a destination network for the light and casual news viewers. They have been around longer than anyone else.” The people who follow something like the Flight 370 story may, in many cases, be people who don’t usually watch 24-hour news. But when a story breaks that they’re interested in following all day and all night, CNN is still the place they instinctively go. It has the brand name left over from the Gulf War in the ’90s; it has the resources for doing this kind of saturation coverage. CNN is the first network that comes to mind for this type of story. Fox News is built not around news stories but around punditry, and its selection of news often consists of taking an item that isn’t that interesting in itself and funnelling it through the outrage of their pundits and panels. If it’s a slow news day, the rage on Fox News or the policy-wonk nerdiness on MSNBC will make it seem like something outrageous and important is always happening.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 22:22:14 +0000