Reality Talk Blog

CNN and my Love Hate Relationship

Posted on 11. Aug, 2009 by Devo in Overdone

CNN. This is a favorite topic of mine because it’s a network I love to hate and can’t live with and can’t live without. The problem is it’s such a huge overbearing news network that simply strives to over power all other news networks. I hate that, but when there is a big news event such as the Iraq war or the 9-11 attacks I am glued to CNN easily over any other network.

When it comes to these big news events, we all want straight facts and all of them. It’s at these times we become news hounds and can’t seem to get enough. This is where CNN comes in and as I cringe they are good at it. There are sides however to CNN that I can’t and will never be able to digest. One of these sides is their love for over dramatizing their reporting of just about any event. Let’s take for example a hurricane. Not that they can ever be over dramatized, but it’s not the event, it’s the reporting that makes me say “I hate this, but I love it”.

A number of years ago, not too long ago actually, I had the misfortune of having to ride out a very powerful hurricane in Mexico, you may remember Hurricane Wilma that landed as a category 5 and moved very slowly for 24 hours. If you’ve ever been in a Hurricane and I know that many have, it’s a powerful experience even when you are perfectly safe as we were. During the storm I was able to move around a little within my hurricane resistant resort, take a lot of photos, and get a feel of the power and destruction of a powerful hurricane.

To make a long story short, the winds are not survivable if you’re out in the open. First, they will pick you up and throw you into the nearest solid piece of whatever and then you are dead and secondly if it matters at that point, the wind creates a vacuum in your lungs and you can’t breath. These are two very simple reasons you can’t be out in a hurricane without protection. Getting back to my point, CNN reporters on the ground in a hurricane seem to defy these things and make it sound like they are actually fully out and surviving the full brunt of the storm. Impossible I say, but I love it anyway.

Another thing that actually keeps me from watching their regular news broadcasts, the ones without a big event is the anchor people themselves. Often they are joined by an expert on a subject who is let’s say in New York while they are in Atlanta. After the introductions, the questions begin, but what happens time and time again is once the expert begins to answer, they are constantly cut off or interrupted altogether by the news person. If that’s not bad enough, they sometimes disagree with their invited expert as if they know absolutely everything there is to know about the subject. That being so, then why bring on an expert.

Listen CNN, you guys are reporters not nuclear scientists, but when it comes to the big news stories you can bet I will be glued to CNN.

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Tags: cnn, news stories