and today's prize for gross stupidity goes to . . .

[realthog]

. . . them doughty bean-counters at the infotainment channel CNN:

CNN Cuts Entire Science, Tech Team

By Curtis Brainard

CNN, the Cable News Network, announced yesterday that it will cut its entire science, technology, and environment news staff, including Miles O’Brien, its chief technology and environment correspondent, as well as six executive producers.

“We want to integrate environmental, science and technology reporting into the general editorial structure rather than have a stand alone unit,” said CNN spokesperson Barbara Levin. “Now that the bulk of our environmental coverage is being offered through the Planet in Peril franchise, which is produced by the Anderson Cooper 360 program, there is no need for a separate unit.”

For more on this, see the report in Columbia Journalism Review. The BBC World News channel should, with luck, be a part of your cable/satellite tv package.

 

Comments

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

And yet Wolf Blitzer is still off welfare.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

That's the truly boggling aspect of CNN's policies. I recall when a while back they sacked the modestly competent Aaron Brown (then probably the best journo they had) in order to make way for . . . extra Wolf Blitzer! Their premise seemed to be that, though Blitzer might be thicker than any number of short planks you'd care to name, he was the presenter the viewers would most want to have a beer with -- the very criterion that made George W. "Il" Buce such a sterling luminary of a president.

The morons running CNN seem to think the road to success is via focusing on the cosmetics, with news coverage as a secondary consideration.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

That's what gets me. I could understand giving Robin Meade a bit more time, but Wolf Blitzer always reminded me of that particularly dopy guy in high school journalism class who really couldn't write, couldn't conduct an interview to save his life, and who generally was so obnoxious and arrogant that even the movie and music critics wouldn't hang out with him, but who kept going regardless because he's certain that his detractors are all jealous. (Sorry: I went through high school journalism with a guy who was exactly that bad, and every time I see Blitzer, I thank Whomever's In Charge that Mark Miles didn't have the wherewithal to move into broadcast journalism.)

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Wolf Blitzer always reminded me of that particularly dopy guy in high school journalism class who really couldn't write, couldn't conduct an interview to save his life, and who generally was so obnoxious and arrogant that even the movie and music critics wouldn't hang out with him, but who kept going regardless because he's certain that his detractors are all jealous"

That's him to a T!

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I don't think I'd want to have a beer with Wolf Blitzer. With Aaron Brown, that would be another matter.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

My feeling exactly: Brown would be (one thinks, anyway) good, informed and interesting company.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"I don't think I'd want to have a beer with Wolf Blitzer."

Especially since you'd probably end up having to pay for the beer . . .

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Probably.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

This is one of those mysteries of life, like the existence of the mosquito.

[txtriffidranch.livejournal.com]

That's unfair. Mosquitoes at least make a food source for innumerable plants and animals. Wolf Blitzer's only saving grace is that he's biodegradable.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

You sure about that? I have the image of him existing forever, resistant to the forces of nature, like a big solid chunk of solid, ooze-saturated mahogany that's doomed to squat lurkishly in a swamp somewhere as the sun dims and reddens . . .

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Wolf Blitzer as even worse than relapsing fever. That's a thought.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

Media at its finest. I say we throw out TVs altogether, take sledge hammers to them. Or at the very least cancel cable and satellite services. That way we can still rent/buy movies and watch them.

Read, People! Unite and read!

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"That way we can still rent/buy movies and watch them."

Sounds good to me. Oh, and BBC World News would be handy just to keep in touch with the rest of the planet.

[sarcobatus.livejournal.com]

Yes, but then the bad guys will somehow get hold of BBC, and all will go to flaming krap.

[quietselkie.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't we all be poking our heads into the sand this way? Then we won't have to face environmental realities, RIGHT?

...right?

[realthog.livejournal.com]

So long as we keep buying a new and bigger SUV each year, as advertised on CNN, that's about the aim, I think.

[sci-o-biscuits.livejournal.com]

"We want to integrate environmental, science, an technology reporting"

a nice way of saying "We want to slash costs by firing people"

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

That's the way the bean counters on Marietta Street like it.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

You live near them, don't you? How come you're sitting in front of your puter playing around on LJ when you could be out throwing bricks through their windows?

Hm. If anyone complained you could claim you thought the bricks were Wolf Blitzer's out-of-wedlock offspring and you were just returning them to sender, as it were.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I work near them (about 3/4 of a mile away as the crow flies).

Nature performed the requisite service this past March. I was at the time attending OmegaCon in Birmingham, Alabama. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

"Nature performed the requisite service this past March."

Hm? The reference has gone zinging past me. Explain, please, oh mighty one.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

A tornado passed through downtown Atlanta, striking CNN headquarters among other buildings.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'd forgotten about that.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, it did not blow away Nancy Grace...

[realthog.livejournal.com]

a nice way of saying "We want to slash costs by firing people"

Nothing nice about it . . .

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

There are so many things about Wolf that annoy me, but one is how he always says "thanks very much" to anyone who has reported anything... and always in a monotone voice. Ughghghghghghghhhh don't get me started... wait, you did!

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I don't mind his annoying habits: it's the fact that he's an incompetent journalist that bothers me. He seems simply not to understand the issues of the day -- any day. I've lost count of the number of times (and besides it was a long time ago that I abandoned CNN in despair) I've seen him completely miss the point when interviewing someone, or fail to ask important questions that so thunderingly obviously should be asked, or allow to pass the most blatant of lies without the slightest quibble from himself . . . or even the slightest sign of any awareness on his part that some sleazebag has just perpetrated an outrageous whopper.

Compare him with, say, the BBC's Stephen Sackur, who has his own irritating habits but is always absolutely on the ball, has always done his research thoroughly, never allows anyone to get away with anything, and has no compunction about telling even the most powerful people in the world if they're talking bullshit, and you begin to see why, if Blitzer were on fire, I wouldn't . . . oh, Pam's just called me for supper . . .

The thing I'm trying to stress is that incompetence in journalism matters, especially if the venue is somewhere like CNN (or the New York Times, etc.) that large numbers of people regard as in some way authoritative. If the US news media had been on the ball during the 2000 and 2004 election cycles, who can tell how different and how much better this nation's history might have been. Had the US news media been competent in the lead up to the Iraq invasion -- competent even to the level of reading what was in the European newspapers -- then that whole miserable carnage might not have happened.

So I get very, very, very angry and upset indeed when the twerps running CNN carry on paying millions to glamorous incompetents and pay for that idiocy by firing science staff at a time when the most important issue facing our species is a scientific one: the myriad aspects of global warming.

Harrumph!

[quilterbear.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, then there's THAT!


no, really, I do understand and agree with it. I was just talking superficially and I'm sorry.....*slinks away*

[deliabarry.livejournal.com]

Oh, for the love of Mike. Will the stupidity never end? This kind of thinking is why I have to deal with undergraduates who think the Moon landing was faked, that global warming will resolve itself, and evolution is a pseudoscience.

And I'm going to miss Miles O'Brien so much. He made the Pathfinder landing so much fun and got me through the Columbia non-landing. Maybe he'll get his own show on Discovery.