La CNN en la tostadora

Tremendo debate sobre la CNN: si es su fin, si es una crisis temporal, si deben imitar a Fox News o a MSNBC –dejarse de noticias y ofrecer más comentarios, tertulias, puntos de vista, dar caña… Que si deben abandonar la cobertura del planeta. Que si debe regresar a sus raíces: hard news sin parar. Que sí, que no, que caiga un chaparrón.

La verdad es que desde hace un año los ratings de la CNN no levantan cabeza, mientras Fox sube y sube. En octubre pasado ya estaba en último lugar entre los canales noticiosos de cable. Muchos de los periodistas que consideran a esta cadena parte de su educación profesional lo viven como un drama. Dicen: a la gente le gusta que le digan lo que debe pensar en lugar de recibir información con la que tomar sus propias decisiones. Algo de eso hay.

Michael Hirschorn suma otros factores:

[…] It’s easy to forget that CNN was once revolutionary. Founded in 1980 […] it was, in terms of cultural impact, the Google of its day. Its gonzo “fluid news” style, low-cost methods, and disdain for the woolly orthodoxies of traditional TV news- gathering terrified the big three, and attracted their most forward-thinking journos. And the internal contradictions in Turner’s vision (public service vs profit growth) were for years obfuscated by the extraordinary cash-spewing awesomeness of the cable business. By 2000, CNN was making $300 million.

It’s hard to see the fervor of early CNN in today’s product, with chummy King cozying up to out-of-date celebrities and […]. CNN’s best work and workers (Sanjay Gupta, Christiane Amanpour, Fareed Zakaria) strain to break through a stultifying smog of midmarket general-interestness […].

CNN’s biggest problem may actually be its founding principles. In an era when news flows like water—available everywhere, all the time, instantly—a network devoted to providing headlines topped with a touch of analysis no longer seems quite so useful. […] What was very urgent in 1980 or on 9/11 no longer seems crucial when we’re drowning in news. CNN’s decline may be, in Wall Street analyst-speak, secular as opposed to cyclical.

Andrew Cohen, en Vanity Fair, está de acuerdo pero –a diferencia del amigo Michael– aún le queda fe:

I find myself […] annoyed by its cheesy anchors, unsatisfied by its guests, frustrated by the lack of attention and detail paid to too many serious stories.[…] CNN at its best was never about personalities; it was always more about getting the pictures and the stories on the air quickly and with a sort of honorable earnestness. It clearly has lost its way.

CNN can’t compete anymore with the audacity/irresponsibility of Fox News without losing more of its journalistic credibility. And it shouldn’t try to compete with the star power drawn to MSNBC through its dominant and vibrant uncle, NBC News. CNN should instead go back to being what it once was—an un-slick, un-stylish venue for serious people who want breaking news done well.

[…] Just because it’s live television news doesn’t mean it’s watchable television news. I’ll take good tape and deep thoughts over inane banter any day of the week—wouldn’t you?

Pero, amigos, no todos tienen tanta esperanza ni son tan optimistas. Michael Calderone, antes de marcharse a Yahoo! News dejó esta pieza (Cómo arreglar CNN) en Politico.com. Entrevista a una docena de cracks de la cosa y…

Their near consensus: It has to change, get more personality, no longer be —as one media critic called it— “the view from nowhere.” Exactly how to do that was not so easy to agree on […].

Y, por último, el profe Rosen ofrece una nueva parrilla/grilla de programación para el prime-time. Estelar.