This CNN ad campaign was new to me (I saw it over the weekend on NY1).
(VOICEOVER) Every American is an independent thinker. No matter your party. No matter your candidate. Get the facts from the only news channel to give you all sides. No spin. No affiliation. No agenda. Just the facts. Demand the truth. We do. You do, too. It’s the most important story this year. Declare your independence. Only CNN equals politics.
If Fox News is “the signal cultural artifact of the Bush era” and, per Chris Matthews, MSNBC unofficially leans Obama-ward, CNN, it seems, is trying to own what it sees as a void in cable news (political news in particular): just-the-facts, opinion-free coverage.
“No spin?” Maybe CNN is declaring that CNN (Anderson, Candy, Wolf et al) won’t spin viewers? But will CNN be spun? Surely CNN is not announcing an end to its post-political-debate visits to the Spin Room? Will CNN just continue to delegate the heavy-lifting (spin-wise) to its guests (will we still see split-screen campaign surrogates spinning and counter-spinning on CNN)?
Because a cable news channel independent of such cable news staples would be revolutionary.
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.