An unbiased source of truth?

What is THAT?

Any news executive who fires Don Lemon, John Harwood, and Brian Stelter, and demotes Jim Acosta, is serious about even-handed journalism. Good journalism is what got the CEO of CNN fired.

The news addicts at the Policy Werkes flip between the cable news shows, Fox, CNN, and yes, MSNBC, and occasionally, PBS. (Our b&w Philco can’t bring in the old Big Three networks anymore.) We like to get all sides, the better to sharpen our rhetorical sword.

CNN boss Chris Licht had the job for just a year before being deep sixed a couple days ago. Tried to pull CNN back from the Woke abyss. His journalists rebelled. A long piece in The Atlantic magazine just a week ago provided the push.

Or is it all fake news?

“We are not an advocacy network,” Licht told writer Tim Alberta. “If you want to work for an advocacy network, there are other places to go. You can find any flavor of advocacy in a news organization that suits your need. … You need an unbiased source of truth.”

Well, that’s how Blaska was taught journalism; the concept was called “objectivity.” See both sides, write both sides. Agreed, journalists once committed the sin of false equivalency. Licht put it this way, according to the Atlantic piece: 

“Some people like rain; some people don’t like rain. You can’t tell me it’s not raining [when] it’s raining.”

Except that it’s never raining for some partisans or always raining for others. Cite CNN to buttress an argument with a Trump supporter and get scolded for relying on “fake news.” In Woke Madison WI, you watch Fox News with the shades drawn. 

Licht argued that the media’s blind spots owe to a lack of diversity — and not the lack of diversity that he sees newsrooms obsessing over. He wants to recruit reporters who are deeply religious and reporters who grew up on food stamps and reporters who own guns. Licht recalled a recent dustup with his own diversity, equity, and inclusion staff after making some spicy remarks at a conference. “I said:

“A Black person, a brown person, and an Asian woman that all graduated the same year from Harvard is not diversity.”

— “Inside the meltdown at CNN”

The inmates rebelled

CNN’s own, newly hired media reporter blasted Licht — while he still ran the cable TV outlet, and in public. So did hallowed reporter Christiane Amanpour. Same thing a few years back when NY Times staffers demanded the head of its opinion page editor for running an op ed by U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas.

Not that the CNN head didn’t stub his toe. Blew into town like a tornado instead of managing incremental change. Moved his office away from the action. Allowed an all-MAGA audience at his Trump town hall telecast.

The real reason Licht failed, speculates another Atlantic writer, was because:

He tried to turn CNN back into the neutral arbiter of truth that it once was (or seemed to be) without understanding that such a role is impossible in today’s fractured, polarized cable-news environment. …. Less than 10 million people watch cable news nightly; 155 million voted in the 2020 election. There simply aren’t enough rabid news consumers who are also staunch centrists to sustain a network. Even Fox News is bleeding viewers who find it insufficiently conservative to networks further to the right, like Newsmax.

— David Graham, The Atlantic

Blaska’s Bottom Line: The growing distrust of common, agreed-upon standards is Balkanizing America.

What news source do YOU trust?