Monday, June 29, 2009

Update on CNN’s “Declaration of Independence”?

How goes CNN’s campaign to become the cable news source of straight, independent news, as opposed to leftwing or rightwing opinion, which, in their marketing formulation, is how CNN positions MSNBC and Fox news respectively? Two nuggets give us conflicting clues.

To recap, CNN has made the decision internally to market itself as a sort of “No Bias, No Bull” television news outlet of record. Tune in to those other guys if you want a shouting match, tune into CNN if you want the straight dope. To buttress its argument, CNN points to momentous events that have delivered big ratings, most notably, Election Day 2009 and President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address.

There are two obvious risks to this strategy. To begin with, what if people just don’t buy it?  Many news consumers object to the very premise of CNN’s formulation. Not only are they not unbiased, some argue, but they are the original biased cable news outlet (remember the “Clinton News Network?”). When a program’s host and a majority of her panel believes Gov. Sarah Palin should just shut up and let late night comedians disparage her children, the words “No Bias, No Bull,” sound a little ironic. Secondly, all the evidence suggests news consumers are increasingly on the hunt for news that fits their worldview. Many media critics believe this explains why Fox News and MSNBC are gaining audiences while CNN superstars like Anderson Cooper continue to lose viewers. If you don’t have a distinct voice in the cable news marketplace, you will pull up the rear in the cable news wars.

And yet …

If you’re like me you look forward to Matt Drudge’s rundown of average viewers of the top cable news shows.  Bill O’Reilly is almost always first, followed by Sean Hannity, Greta and Glenn Beck.  Lately MSNBC’s partisan personalities have filled the middle third of the pack while CNN has fallen well behind. Nevertheless, CNN appears to have owned the death of Michael Jackson.  From Drudge:

CABLE NEWS RACE
JUNE 25, 2009

CNN 8PM 4,046,000
CNN 7PM 3,916,000
CNN 9PM 3,913,000
CNN 10PM 3,681,000
FOXNEWS 8PM 3,423,000
FOXNEWS 7PM 3,379,000
CNN 6PM 3,098,000
FOXNEWS 9 PM 2,872,000
FOXNEWS 6PM 2,816,000
FOXNEWS 10PM 2,266,000
MSNBC 8PM 1,916,000
MSNBC 9M 1,540,000

Once again CNN dominated a singular major news event, even a non-political one. But does anyone think it will stay there?

Here’s another curiosity.  CNN says it wants to portray a non-partisan image and attract an audience of independents, politically and mindedly. So why do its viewer polls always come in to the left of the general public?  I know, I know: Viewer polls are self-selecting measures of … well, nothing scientific anyway.  But don’t they tell us something about who’s watching?

Take, for example, Campbell Brown’s June 19th viewer poll: Do you agree or disagree that President Obama should do more to support the reformers in Iran? According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, forty percent of Americans believe the president has not been aggressive enough.  But only thirty percent of CNN viewers believe that.

The contrast is even sharper on the issue of health care reform.  On June 22nd, Brown asked her viewers: Yes or no, will Obama fix healthcare? Seventy-percent said yes. But a recent Washington Post poll showed a starkly more skeptical view of President Obama’s health reform plan:

Most respondents are “very concerned” that health-care reform would lead to higher costs, lower quality, fewer choices, a bigger deficit, diminished insurance coverage and more government bureaucracy. About six in 10 are at least somewhat worried about all of these factors, underscoring the challenges for lawmakers as they attempt to restructure the nation’s $2.3 trillion health-care system.

Are CNN viewers simply less critical of Obama than average Americans? And if so, is CNN really appealing to the mushy middle, as is the network’s goal? In August of 2008 the Pew Research Center for People and the Press released a survey that showed CNN had the most partisan audience in cable news, not the least. It seems little has changed since then.

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Tips? Nuggest? Contact me at patjhynes-AT-gmail.com or on Twitter @patjhynes.

Topics: cnn, campbell-brown, bias