Last Friday, we learned that new CNN president Jonathan Klein “is being welcomed as a hero within CNN” because “ratings are beginning to rise thanks to Klein’s steering toward news and away from attitude.”
Sounds great, right? After all, who doesn’t want to see CNN cut back on “Crossfire”-style shoutfests in favor of actual news reporting?
Well us, for one. That is, if this weekend’s embarrassing programming reflects what CNN now considers news. Ever since Jon Stewart went on “Crossfire” to berate that show’s hosts for “hurting America,” it’s become gospel that “Crossfire” and its ilk deserve nothing but disdain. But while such shows are certainly flawed, at least they’re about something substantive — Paul Begala might just be shouting talking points as loudly as possible, but at least viewers are able to glean that, for example, the bankruptcy bill has just been passed, and that Democrats consider it a giveaway to credit card companies. That’s far from ideal — the bankruptcy bill is a giveaway to credit card companies, and CNN should be able to assert that without couching it in partisan rhetoric — but at least it’s something.
Contrast that with the drivel CNN offered up this weekend, when the network morphed into the 24/7 Jennifer Wilbanks channel. Don’t know who Wilbanks is? Perhaps you know her better as the “runaway bride,” as she’s been dubbed by the media. To recap: Wilbanks, who is a young white woman from Duluth, Georgia, disappeared shortly before her wedding. She cut her hair and took a bus to Las Vegas, and then to Albuquerque. There she made a call to police claiming she had been kidnapped, and, after they picked her up, she eventually admitted she’d actually left on her own.
That’s pretty much the whole story. It’s kind of compelling in a movie-of-the-week sort of way, but there’s not much to it — if it were a movie of the week, we wager, producers would have asked for a rewrite. But that didn’t stop CNN from flooding the proverbial zone. Here’s a list of people the network has trotted in front of the camera to discuss Wilbanks since noon on Saturday:
The mayor of Duluth.
A pastor from Wilbanks’ Baptist church.
A spokesperson from the Albuquerque police department.
The Albuquerque police chief.
Wilbanks’ fiance.
A friend of Wilbanks’ fiance.
An FBI investigator.
An FBI spokesman.
A mental health expert discussing how the family can “heal.”
A clinical psychologist speculating on why Wilbanks took off.
Another clinical psychologist.
A Georgia district attorney.
A New York criminal defense attorney.
A law professor and civil rights attorney.
“Another almost-bride,” who talked about “getting cold feet.”
This, of course, in addition to countless reports from CNN correspondents, some who were on the scene in Duluth, recapping the same information over and over again to the point of numbness. To spice things up, the network played the 911 call Wilbanks made to police. Producers showed tape of her relieved family before they found out she’d concocted the kidnapping story, as well as tape of her pastor later saying the community was embarrassed but relieved. Talking heads questioned whether Wilbanks would be charged with a crime. Even though they knew the story wasn’t a story — that the network had grievously over-reacted to what wasn’t actually a kidnapping — CNN still put together an 8 p.m. Saturday “special report” on the matter. By sundown that day, the network had put on a day-long clinic demonstrating just about everything that’s wrong with TV news.
Klein claims that CNN has “been working hard to find provocative, character-driven news stories. We’ve been emphasizing storytelling.” If it wasn’t before, it’s pretty clear now what Klein means by “character-driven”: he wants stories with clear narrative arcs, with heroes and villains whose roles can be conveyed in twenty-second blocks. The problem with this philosophy is that neither news nor life is ever so neat.
This is not to say that fascinating stories cannot be teased out of the warp and woof of the news. They can. One can commit to storytelling about American soldiers in Iraq that actually sheds light on the conflict. Or investigative pieces on low-income families that helps viewers understand the impact of the bankruptcy bill. A poignant anecdote can help bring the audience into a discussion of health care. Klein’s philosophy isn’t a bad one — if it’s applied in the service of news.
But that’s not how he’s applying it. Instead, if Saturday is any indication, he’s pushing the news aside to make way for whatever salacious but otherwise unrevealing story he can get his hands on. The ratings might get better with a focus on emotional stories instead of dueling talking heads, but there’s a ceiling there — people who turn to CNN for the news aren’t going to suffer too many viewing experiences like this weekend’s without turning elsewhere.
If he’s smart, Klein can have his cake and eat it too — he can give people both news and emotion in one neat package. But if he’s just going to parade another Jennifer Wilbanks in front of the camera each week, we’ll soon be pining for the golden age of “Crossfire.”
And that, readers, is pretty depressing.
–Brian Montopoli
Brian Montopoli is a writer at CJR Daily.