Ted Turner recently said that he wished that he was still running CNN, which he started in 1980. I wish he was too. New ratings show that the first cable news network is now in fourth--and last--place among cable news shows in prime time. And it is spot they richly deserve. Larry King has lost all pride of place and now gives his entire hour to minor players and freaks, I think he is channeling the spirit of Joe Pyne. He is followed by feather-weight Anderson Cooper who gets two hours of non-news delivered with the demeanor of a quasi-serious junior high schooler.
(CNN fired a real newsman, Aaron Brown, a few years ago in order to foist Cooper on an unsuspecting public.) And, to really rub it in, the second hour is a repeat of the first.
If CNN is satisfied to be whipped by the likes of Sean Hannity, Greta Van Sustern, Glenn Beck and all the rest, ad nauseum, then why not just shut the whole thing down and tell Rupert Murdoch that he has won? Watching the ghost of what used to be a very good network is no longer a reasonable use of one's time.
Turner says he would stop news-lite and give much more foreign news coverage. It may be too late for a rescue, Ted, but if you do pull it off please tell Wolf Blitzer to take some lessons from Fareed Zakaria on gravitas in the workplace.
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