CNN received a lot of attention recently when they introduced their 'facts first' ad campaign. Presenting CNN as the bastion of truth telling, the ads are memorable, but misrepresentative of CNN in the same way Fox News gets lambasted for being 'fair' and 'balanced'. When CNN is reporting on facts, it can be fantastic; it's a shame it happens so rarely on their airtime.
It's a banana more often than CNN would care to admit
Anytime I sample the big three cable news entities, the same questions keep repeating in my head: how many people are part of the discussion, what is the main topic being discussed, and to what extent is the chyron being used. When cable news is at its very best, there is less than 3 people covering events that have already occurred where the chyron summarizes and reinforces the journalism. I can find this rare unicorn configuration consistently once on each channel: at the top of the hour with Jake Tapper and The Lead, and peppered throughout the hours under Shepard Smith and Chuck Todd's supervision.
Conjecture about what Robert Mueller is thinking, who Trump might fire next or when Micheal Avenatti finds time to take his one blue suit to the dry cleaners isn't helpful to public discourse. If CNN was hellbent on making sure a more informed electorate never repeated the mistakes of 2016, they sure have a funny way of going about it. In the prime time hours, the CNN chyron exists solely to troll the president. When I try to engage with family that rarely turns the TV away from Fox News, the first line of defense is always the hypocrisy of CNN: that they, or MSNBC, commit the same sins as Fox News. It leaves me with the impression that they can see what's wrong with their offering, but are not willing to lose the culture war. I wish there was a strong neutral future-forward option for all of us.
This isn't helping
I want a news source that is constantly questioning their intent and strive to have clear and transparent goals. Trump mentions that the Iran deal is the worst deal the U.S. has ever signed. Rather than six talking heads screaming about what happens next, why not have a retrospective that analyzes the complicated deals we've done in the past. How do they compare to this one? CNN's projecting an image of self-righteousness that rings a little too close to Hillary Clinton's campaign image. We already know how this story ends. We need something new.