Comments on: Does anybody else hate the new CNN news crawl?

By: jlsimons

jlsimons — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:07:53 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Rob. CNN used to report the news. Now it seems to have joined the talking head heard: put 4 people on a panel with disparate views and call it cable news. But what it is is choral commentary, with verses neatly timed to fit into the tiny gaps surrounding commercials. The last straw for me was “All MJ, All the Time.” I just stopped watching and moved on to BBC News. (Talking to others, I found out I was not alone in this emigration, either.)

By: Rob Harris

Rob Harris — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 03:05:19 +0000

Count me in as one of the Haters! While CNN does present the ocassional
decent documentary, most of programs
are very annoying. All day and night, the yelling of the pundits is maddening. Far more than the crawling
drivel, the constant need to adjust the
volume gets to me even more!

By: Surviving the Second CNN Revolution « Can someone please explain…?

Surviving the Second CNN Revolution « Can someone please explain…? — Tue, 05 May 2009 07:55:43 +0000

[...] Does anybody else hate the new CNN news crawl? [...]

By: jlsimons

jlsimons — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:33:59 +0000

Yes, I do… but I think they’ve conveniently forgotten. I also remember when a news anchor was a reporter, not a commentator, or worse, an “entertainer.” These days, it can be virtually impossible to tell the difference. You think you’re watching someone deliver the news and suddenly, they’ve injected their opinion, and then you’re left wondering, how much of what I’ve been listening to is actually editorial? Thanks for the comment, Laust.

By: Laust

Laust — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:54:57 +0000

Remember when CNN headline news was actually that?

By: jlsimons

jlsimons — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:19:17 +0000

You’re right on the mark on both counts, Oftenatangent. I remember the thrill I got when CNN was first on the air, and I actually watched events around the world unfold live. Now, cable news is like 1010 WINS: 20 minutes of content, endlessly sliced, diced and rehashed all day long, buried under the weight of shouting pundits. I also remember when I could attempt to derive the truth by adding up CNN and FOX and then dividing by 2. At least the crawl was unadulterated news, selective though it might be. All I really want is Google news, on my TV, with great videos of what’s really happening. Then I could be a happy, satisfied visual news junkie couch potato. (Because you see, my computer screen is too small and too far away from my couch, and I still do not have a jack into the back of my head.)

By: Oftenatangent

Oftenatangent — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:50:40 +0000

Sorry JLS. I think you need to speak with your physician about dialing down the opiates if you’re looking for news on CNN.

I stopped watching CNN about two years ago when I realized that what they had chosen to broadcast as “news” was 15 solid seconds of a grinning movie star standing motionless in front of crowd so photographers could capture her gown.

Perhaps you’ll remember when the purpose of “the news” was to figure out what was important from the day’s events, gather honest information and concentrate it for my/our consumption. Clearly, CNN is failing on that first stage, and please, don’t get me started on the second stage.

I think you’re looking for too much in the crawler. I think it’s just a way to put “flashing lights” on the screen, in the same way that web advertisers put obnoxious animated flashers around their ads that urge you to “click here” because you are the millionth person to visit their website. The flashing lights hold viewers’ attention, for another moment or two, and that takes us to the next commercial.

By: jlsimons

jlsimons — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:08:45 +0000

Thanks for the comment, Jen. And the laugh… I remember those!

By: Jen

Jen — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 13:50:47 +0000

I don’t like the new crawl either (although it’s not so much a crawl anymore since it doesn’t scroll across the screen). This reminds me of a Saturday Night Live sketch from a few years back when Jerry Seinfeld was hosting. It was a series of news teasers like “There’s something in your kitchen that’s killing your kids! Tune in at 6 to find out what it is,” or “The President died today! But the president of what? Tune in at 11 to find out!”