The Three Titans

FOX News. CNN. MSNBC. These are the three titans of the twenty-four hour cable news networks.

Really, they remind me much of the three nations that were always at war with one another in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: Eurasia, Eastasia, and Oceania. In the novel, two of them are always at war with the third, and the allegiances seem to switch regularly and without warning.

But I hardly need to explain Nineteen Eighty-Four to anyone who aspires to obtain a degree in political science. To admit to not reading Nineteen Eighty-Four as someone interested in political science is almost like a Baptist preacher admitting that he actually hasn't even read part of the Bible.

But I digress. Anyway, it would seem to me that CNN would be the one that is being destroyed by the other two currently. As recently as a year or two ago, MSNBC would be the network placing a distant third behind the other two in ratings and influence, but CNN surely takes that dubious distinction now.

MSNBC took the clear number-two spot behind Fox because it was willing to position itself as the liberal counterbalance to the rightward slant of Fox News.

Realizing this, CNN has attempted recently to place itself as the unbiased, serious news source between the two warring factions. I do think that this is the only thing they can do—I mean, are they really going to out-liberal MSNBC, so to speak? That seems like it would be a tall task, and one that would make CNN redundant and irrelevant.

As just one piece of evidence displaying this tactic:

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2010/11/09/promo.news.network.cnn

That's a pretty clear message. Fox News is listed on the elephant, while MSNBC is on the donkey. CNN is going to be the news network, not the cheerleader.

If this were true, then I would wholeheartedly support them as serving a useful purpose. But it simply isn't. They're still a bunch of leftists at heart, and they don't understand what appealing to the center actually means.

For instance, let me use their relatively new 8PM show, Parker Spitzer, as an example of this. CNN intends this to be a Crossfire-style debate amongst a conservative and a liberal. Now first of all, I don't believe that two opposing sides screaming at each other for an hour is the real meaning of a lack of bias or true neutrality. But I shall set aside that opinion for the time being.

In short, I think this show is unwatchable and awful, and it is a clear sign that CNN just doesn't get it. It actually reminds me a lot of Hannity & Colmes back in the day. Yeah, Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes were supposedly equals (wink, wink), but everyone knew that Colmes was really just the foil/sidekick for Hannity, the show's dominant personality and star.

This dynamic seems to be in play for Parker Spitzer. It's Spitzer's show, and Parker is just along for the ride as an accessory, token conservative. I find it interesting that CNN picked these two personalities to man the primetime spot in this sort of format. Conservatives absolutely despised Eliot Spitzer as both the attorney general and governor of New York, and were certainly happy to see him crash and burn in a sex scandal.

And having someone who inspires that kind of hate for one side might be fine, if placed against a worthy adversary... but Kathleen Parker is just not that opponent. Those on the right don't like her either; they consider her something of a turncoat for her columns during the 2008 presidential election, with much of her writing spent bashing conservatives. If they must make another show like this (and I was personally not a fan of either Crossfire or Hannity & Colmes), then it needs to at least be done correctly.

Again, they just don't get it. I think there's a place for a third cable-news network that is more hard-news focused and less slanted than what we are faced with currently; but, until CNN has a better handle on how to shed their liberal binds and actually accomplish this great task, they will continue to languish in both ratings and influence.