At 11:30 last night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper announced:
You’re looking at a picture of The Spin Room. That is one place that we’re not going tonight. I never understand why anyone would actually enter The Spin Room to talk to people because they just purely spin and even call it The Spin Room. We have decided not to enter The Spin Room tonight. We’re focusing on some of The Best Political Team on Television folks that we have right here. If you want to see the Spin Room you have to probably go to another network. It’s not worth it, frankly.
Yeah! We’re not going to soil our journalism cred by entering The House of Spin (like we usually do) simply to be spun by spinning spinners. What a waste that’d be when we’ve got our own Spin Room set up right here in the studio, with “some of our Best Political Team on Television folks” (Begala, Bennett, Castellanos, Carville, Gergen….)
And also, because I always have to scratch my head over one of CNN’s on-screen bells or whistles: that “FACT” box on the bottom of the screen? Was this one, which appeared during commercials, really necessary? “FACT: CNN’s coverage of the presidential debate will continue in a moment.” Really? Promise? (I suppose those Cialis ads do feel never-ending…)
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.