20 ms·

CNN cutting back on over-hyping everything as “breaking news”

417 points by asplake 4y ago

jsemrau 4y ago
Finally. I hated when every Trump tweet was "breaking news".
dpio 4y ago
Almost feels like a The Onion headline.
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- tragictrash 4y ago
  It really does feel satirical. Better headline: 'Breaking news: CNN cutting back on over-hyping everything as “breaking news”'
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    I think most things will sound satirical if you rewrite a non-hypocritical statement to sound hypocritical.
guerrilla 4y ago
So, either there is a reason this (whole thing) became less profitable or this is going to fail. Which one is it?
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- lame-robot-hoax 4y ago
  Probably people became desensitized to it, and new leadership wants them to pivot back to the middle and sit in between MSNBC and Fox. This then fits within their new more serious, investigative, fact based image they’re trying to portray.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    Yeah, that's one idea I had... maybe centrist (or eventually right-wing) politics benefit the owners more at this point. I guess we'll see.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  My feeling is that "clickbaits" chew on reader and viewer trust and eventually you churned it down until it doesn't work anymore.
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winslow 4y ago
When everything is breaking news, nothing is breaking news.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  And there’s no reason to take anything on CNN seriously when they do that. I moved back to printed newspapers and magazines, and don’t regret it, although nothing is instantaneous anymore. I can skip over shenanigans and ads.
- vikingerik 4y ago
  They kept breaking the news and now it's broken. What did they expect?
winternett 4y ago
They're really desperate for clicks and that has made the quality of their news really decline. Their pages are overrun by ads and even pop-ups now and that makes them really look like a tabloid. Opinion pieces are strewn throughout regular news links, and that really cheapens the brand of news delivery they had. In a highly competitive market, the key to winning is not to imitate competition, it's to decrease overhead costs and to deliver a higher quality product, but in the age of social media, everyone is losing sight of that because of the allure of instant virality and it's getting really toxic to normal human beings more and more every day. They regularly forgo important local and international stories unless they're comical or sensational and it's contradictory to provision of news, and that makes them competitive with every single commentator in podcasts and on social media, which is silly because CNN has far mor resources than that competition. Too many of their stories are subtle ads for big industry products as well, which also erodes trust in their brand and increases potential for conflicts of interest in reporting objectively. It's a terrible tragedy that they really watch reddit mostly to determine what is newsworthy, because Reddit and users there all have agendas of their own... The downvote/upvote system is not transparent and it has been totally compromised by brigading. News stories, especially online should not be competing with each other for noteworthiness, because everyone has a different set of things that are relevant to them... Now we simply have one pipeline for everyone, which is taken over by commercial or sensational interests, and quickly put on mute once it becomes boring or too repetitive, despite lives being deeply affected (e.g. Water pollution in Flint, Michigan). This is why CNN is suffering a decline in revenue and spikes in hype during a time they could really shine most... They're wearing social media blinders instead of returning to the traditional book on news coverage.... That and all the pharmaceutical ads perhaps... (I am not a journalist FTR).
- 0des 4y ago
  > Opinion pieces are strewn throughout regular news links Sometimes I wonder if some folks want news, or just something to confirm their biases.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    Most political positions are really about group membership and we want to read things that re-affirm that we belong to those groups. The easiest way to do this is to attack some "other".
leach 4y ago
Are they doing anything to restore their credibility though?
- 0des 4y ago
  Probably going to have to wait for an opposing party candidate to get voted in to know for sure as the true litmus test of their resolve.
  - bloodyplonker22 4y ago
    Right, like when Trump got voted in and they went absolutely nuts and lost all of the little credibility they had left with outrageous out of context articles. I am a centrist who doesn't think Trump has the best platform out there at all (especially with his extreme isolationism and nationalism), but even I was astounded by how crazily they could make things up, out of context, in order to make him and his administration look bad in any possible way to weak minded headline readers.
    - 0des 4y ago
      How was this comment [dead] immediately right out of the gate? Is there a word filter or does everyone just see red when certain topics come up?
- lapcat 4y ago
  Did they ever have credibility? CNN came to prominence during the first Iraq invasion, because of their live coverage from inside Iraq. What are the important stories that CNN broke? I can't remember any. They don't seem very big on "investigative" reporting.
  - foobarian 4y ago
    Well they don't even do that any more. Where is Christiana Amanpour live in Ukraine ducking artillery shells? Where is the live video from a Maverick missile approaching a target?
bigmattystyles 4y ago
First CNN the way it is packaged and broadcast isn't really news, it's entertainment. In this case, "Breaking" really just means - "latest development" so I don't really mind the word - the problem is the accompanying music and banner font and color scheme used make it seem like it's 9/11. So they say "Breaking", but make you think "Groundbreaking, earth shattering". Hopefully the next things to go will be * when they are interviewing someone that actually made a sacrifice to be on their program, like a civilian from a war zone, etc.. but you can tell the anchor is getting nervous because they have to go to commercial - I can't stand that. * the news you must hear after the break where it took longer to tell you it was coming up after the break than to just tell you the news All these cable channels probably have great reporters and news staffs but getting you the news is secondary to advertising, which is fine, I understand that, it's just the medium is not that well suited since it requires frequent interruptions and baiting you into staying through the break. If it has to be broadcast, the news hour with Judy Woodruff on PBS is the best in the US. Yes, it's curated, can't possibly cover everything, but they make decent editorial decisions.
- philwelch 4y ago
  > First CNN the way it is packaged and broadcast isn't really news, it's entertainment. I first started noticing this in 2016, when their promotions for their presidential debate coverage reminded me a lot of how boxing matches are promoted.
- babypuncher 4y ago
  > First CNN the way it is packaged and broadcast isn't really news, it's entertainment. I think this is a problem with all cable news, and is more or less directly responsible for the dramatic polarization of US politics over the last 30 years. Politics looks more like sports now. Irrational fandom and support for one's "team" is fine when it is over something trivial like moving a ball from one end of the field to another. It becomes detrimental when it's over things that actually impact our lives. Hell, before cable news, Republicans and Democrats didn't even get consistent colors on electoral maps. It used to be that blue meant "incumbent party" and red meant "challenging party".
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tpmx 4y ago
[Discovery CEO] Zaslav and mentor and investor John Malone have been public about their push to bring CNN back towards hard news coverage, and away from progressive commentary. I had missed that. That's very welcome - I hope they succeed. I imagine it could be very hard to pull this off after a ~decade of whatever CNN has been doing though. More context: Discovery and WarnerMedia (former CNN parent company) merged back in April. The resulting entity "Warner Bros. Discovery" is led by David Zaslav, Discovery CEO since 2006.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  >" push to bring CNN back towards hard news coverage, and away from progressive commentary." I'd be weary about this. I don't sense CNN was somehow compelled to present progressive commentary and they now want to confront that market pressure, but rather, they employ mostly progressive journalists and that is how they choose to cover the news. I suspect the execs will try to tone it down but progressives aren't known for wanting to be neutral or muted about their causes. Activism and "everything is political" are fundamental aspects of their worldview.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    - BitwiseFool 4y ago
      I make personal observations and share them, you are correct!
  - linkingday 4y ago
    seeing CNN and "progressive" in the same context befuddles me - these guys are center-right in almost every sense. I guess that's just where the Overton window is nowadays
    - zmgsabst 4y ago
      If you think CNN is “center right”, you’re revealing your own far left biases.
mkl95 4y ago
I just searched "Breaking news" and CNN International is the first result. It will take them a while to rebrand.
j_walter 4y ago
When the jury reaching a verdict in the Depp/Heard trial is "breaking news" like it plastered across my TV screen the other day...then all hope is lost.
- bena 4y ago
  The problem is that it is breaking news. It is news about an event that is happening as they speak. The fact that it is frivolous news has no bearing on whether or not it is breaking. But the whole concept is from a time when communication was slow. The news that traveled the fastest was the most important. So when something was denoted as "breaking news", you'd know that it was important enough to be told right now. But today? We practically know of events before they're covered by news organizations. And communication is so quick and cheap that even the most banal information can be bandied about without care. So we can be notified of everything. All news we hear is "breaking". So the term has lost its cachet. We don't need it anymore.
  - j_walter 4y ago
    I'd say it's breaking information...but far from newsworthy. Breaking news is an update on the war in Ukraine, a school shooting or other major impact. A defamation trial between two celebrities is not and should not be news.
    - bena 4y ago
      News is recent information. That's the only qualifier. What's happening in Ukraine is just as much news as the fact I'm drinking another cup of coffee. And while I agree that a defamation trial between two celebrities is not noteworthy, I treat it as such by not reading news about it. If I see an article about it, I just scroll past it. But it is news by the very definition of the term. Not all news needs to be of grave import.
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- jonny_eh 4y ago
datalopers 4y ago
cnn sucks. fox sucks. msnbc sucks. local news is all managed by sinclair to say the exact same thing. what's worth consuming? ap, reuters, npr?
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- rabuse 4y ago
  Honestly, I'm so burnt out from the sensationalizing of everything, I don't even care about news anymore. If it doesn't affect me directly (although, even it if does, the hell can I realistically do?), then I just don't care anymore.
  - icelancer 4y ago
    I think the uncharitable self-interpretation of this feeling is "burn out" or "not caring" when it might be more accurately described as more responsible information consumption. It's not like we've always had this unfettered access to global heartbreak and problems we can't do anything about plus a responsibility to consume it. The idea that we have to pay attention to everything in the world every minute of the day else we're terrible civil servants is a relatively new phenomenon... and not one that I think is particularly productive, or valid.
    - wccrawford 4y ago
      But it's coupled with the problem that you either consume all the news as the media wants you to, or you cut yourself off almost completely. It's hard to find any news sources that only bring you relevant news, instead of attempting to flood you 24/7 with literally anything that's happening. The closest I've come is to ignore standard news media and be informed via things that filter in through friends, co-workers, and non-standard news sites like HN. I'd love to be better informed of what's going on, but I refuse to subject myself to the firehose.
      - asdff 4y ago
froggertoaster 4y ago
> [Discovery CEO] Zaslav and mentor and investor John Malone have been public about their push to bring CNN back towards hard news coverage, and away from progressive commentary. Laudable, and I hope they succeed. The progressive angle on everything has really undermined a lot of their credibility - and assuming they're able/willing to make the requisite changes internally to make this happen, it will still take years to regain that trust from their audience across the entire spectrum of viewers.
kyleblarson 4y ago
It's amazing to think that some McKinsey consultant convinced CNN to launch CNN+. No one is watching CNN for free and they thought that people would pay for their content?
ozzythecat 4y ago
They have a long ways to go to earn back my trust. CNN is outright just sensational commentary posing to be news. The broadcast outlets don’t focus on commentary, but the selective coverage and specific questions in interviews peak their obvious agenda. Then you have Fox News, who is unashamedly doing the same thing on the right. The pandering to selective political ideologies and pushing particular agendas is pervasive across the American media landscape. I don’t know if it’s better in other countries. I do think think social media gets a lot of criticism and disdain from these outlets, and sure I’m not a fan of FB or Twitter. But traditional American news media in my mind has been stirring this pot for decades, and they seem to get a pass. We talk about breaking up FB, but these American news outlets seem to get a pass.
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- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  The big thing about CNN is telling people politics is hopeless, and therefore not to vote. And it does this selectively, it sells this as a capability. Sells diminished voter turnout. And broadcasts weaponized racism/rapism accusations, including Inter-Continental Ballistic Rape Accusations, ICBRA's, like (I'm not sure cnn.com partook in this but still, nytimes.com did) those affecting the owner of Techcrunch, Mike Arrington, where he was literally two states away from the victim at the time of the rape (allegedly obviously, being sarcastic, but the media did NOT say allegedly, in effect claimed he was thousands of miles long--at the calf, or at the thigh, whatever, standing in Washington but penetrating in California--rather than question the bitchvictim). So even the editor of a medium-sized newspaper can get slandered in the worst possible way across continents? At that point, I just stop listening to rape accusations in the media no matter what, like you can accuse anybody, at any time, of anything, provided he has a penis[1]. Nowadays, if "they" are white. White male, basically. Just accusing white men of being white men, frankly. Mike Arrington is a white man, news at 11. And let me say something else. I will never vote for a man who has not been accused of rape in the media. If he has been accused of rape, maybe he has my vote maybe he doesn't. Probably does. If he hasn't been accused of rape on the media, he's not a threat to bad people and I will flat out not vote for him. I actually acted on that recently. José Antonio Kast, though I would have normally voted for him, I saw he had no accusations so I didn't go to vote in the Chilean Presidential Elections for him. Obviously because that in a presidential candidate that candidate had strategies to dodge or diffuse or dislodge or discourage rape accusations, nobody that well-known can possibly have a clean record. His opponent, Boric, didn't. It's the most basic form of mudslinging, rape accusations. You can always get some female confidence artist to "come forward," always, it costs like 2000 USD in Chile, if that. It's cheap, it's trivial, there's no cross-examination, victim never gets named in public, if nobody's done it it's because the candidate planned it all out for it not to happen, ie premeditated that same crime. Pretty much is a rapist for real if he's never been accused. And Kast lost the election, due to thousands of votes like mine. Every vote can break a tied election, in fact I tied an election 126 to 126, in high school. Kast lost in part because he had that suspicious clean slate. It's counter-reliable, whatever the media says, the truth is almost exactly to the opposite. [1] I still judge rape accusations made in person to me, or what I witness in person, as I see fit. "He says she says" has no weight, but in the moment, it's a totally different ball-park. I have taken suicidal levels of risk to defend women who asked for help in person, risks I've never seen anybody else take. But not for an accusation in the bitchvictim media.
UberFly 4y ago
Well the mid-terms are on the horizon and they've got candidates to support and others to attack. I don't know how they're going to resist their own DNA.
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OnlyMortal 4y ago
Looks at BBC News app
tiffanyh 4y ago
What I always found interesting is that the AP actually provides other news outlets a "score" on the significance of a new story in their newswire, but because outlets are competing for attention - this score never gets acknowledged and instead, everything is just marked as "breaking news" by the other outlets. If only all outlets adhered to the significance score.
Melatonic 4y ago
I really think that "TV News" aka the current format (either on TV or streaming or anywhere) is going to drastically decline as Gen X and the Boomer generation age out. Do we really want or need a "personality" to deliver us information? Reading just seems so much easier and more efficient
- robonerd 4y ago
  They're being replaced with twitch streamers who opine on news articles in-between thanking simps for donations. Reading news written by other people, being a personality for lonely people who want parasocial relationships, taking frequent breaks for a word from their sponsors.. it's fundamentally the same thing.
- spaetzleesser 4y ago
  It may change but it won't get better. I don't see the currently 20 year olds better informed or more moderate. They just get manipulated by different media.
trothamel 4y ago
This is long overdue... I'd have hoped that they would have done it in 2014, when this bit of classic overhype aired. https://i.imgur.com/2y3K1w2.png https://i.imgur.com/2y3K1w2.png "Breaking News: Titanic Sunk 102 Years Ago Tonight"
- billti 4y ago
  I recall one day seeing the red banner on the top of the CNN site that read, “BREAKING NEWS: No update on the…” followed by whatever was the hot story at the time. For real. It was both comical and tragic.
- omoikane 4y ago
  Came here to look for this exact example, was not disappointed :)
- anm89 4y ago
  I've never seen that. That's amazing
mdeck_ 4y ago
Next perhaps they can get Wolf Blitzer to stop shouting literally every sentence that comes out of his mouth as if it is all “BREAKING NEWS.”
- the_biot 4y ago
  I just hope they take Don "pandering propaganda" Lemon off the air. Hard to take them seriously as a news source when you see that show.
  - adamrezich 4y ago
    what if we all just agreed that "teevee news presenter personalities" were a dumb cultural relic of the pre-internet era & as a society moved on from accepting the validity of their entire schtick?
    - robonerd 4y ago
      It won't happen. There's a lot of demand for media personalities, particularly from lonely people who like to form parasocial relationships with these celebrities. Pithily put: cable news personalities are to lonely boomers what twitch streamers are to lonely zoomers.
      - babypuncher 4y ago
        I guess us Millennials are stuck feigning conversations with our morning avocado toast.
kringo 4y ago
finally!
jillesvangurp 4y ago
The problem with crying wolf all the time is that people stop believing you have anything important to say. I don't recall the last time that CNN broke any news. Probably early nineties or so. It would be news worthy if they did.
- kylehotchkiss 4y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/us/cnn-and-foxs-supreme-court-mistake.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/us/cnn-and-foxs-supreme-c... One time they were so desperate to be first, they reported the wrong result of a supreme court ruling.
  - cwkoss 4y ago
    Can't be scooped if you make up the news yourself
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > I don't recall the last time that CNN broke any news. They just broke some news today, it's on their front page: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/02/politics/meadows-texts-january-6-trump-stop-violence/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/02/politics/meadows-texts-januar...
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    /s?
    - deleted 4y ago
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gossamer 4y ago
I wish they had prepended "Breaking News: " to the title of this story.
egberts1 4y ago
Well, that made me laugh. Thanks for the chuckle, CNN.
thepasswordis 4y ago
Sounds cool, except: look at CNN's frontpage right now.
kylecordes 4y ago
The fundamental challenge for all news channels: The natural, normal, expected behavior is to have big spikes of viewership when something major happens. Then a radically lower level of ongoing viewership, because well-adjusted productive people just check the news briefly every day. This is not compelling at all from a business point of view, hence the relentless search for any and always to drive constant viewership.
bsedlm 4y ago
if all news are breaking news, then there are no breaking news
lazyeye 4y ago
The mainstream media has no business model anymore, its been destroyed by the internet. So now they just generate provocative content as cheaply as possible to attract eyeballs for advertisers. And no content is cheaper to produce than opinion...
productceo 4y ago
Lost opportunity to ironically call this news "breaking"
rvz 4y ago
So it has been finally admitted. No wonder many people didn't realise that they just got fooled and manipulated back in 2016 and on wards. Perhaps that's why CNN needed so many clicks at the time and this is why they lived up to being the tag-line that they have always hated as being 'fake news' media. So it really unsurprising.
StevePerkins 4y ago
This story makes me smile. Back in the late-2000's, I worked at CNN on a 12-month contract. While there, I built a predecessor to the current "Breaking News" website banner. At least at the time, Turner did not allow contractors to extend beyond the 12-month mark. So when my contract came up, they offered to convert me over to perm. I declined, because my interests lay more on the backend side of the tech stack, and my role there had been far more frontend-focused than I wanted for the long term. Fast-forward 10 to 15 years, and I've had a lot of experiences that I'm very proud of. I've built concurrent systems that scaled to impressive levels of data. I've built event busses that moved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of financial transactions per year. Etc. STILL, "my son built the Breaking News banner on cnn.com!" is the thing that my mom tells her friends. It's the only thing that my wife ever understood about what I do for a living. There is such power in the visual, and in the consumer-side. In a very real sense, this silly thing was the crowning achievement of my career... and it was about two days of work and a few hundred lines of HTML and jQuery.
- brightball 4y ago
  Related, I've often thought a resume site like LinkedIn should include a "What does your mom tell her friends that you do?" section. :-) It would probably be pretty entertaining.
  - jdhawk 4y ago
    this is an awesome idea. a newer title for an executive summary for less traditional companies.
  - Karawebnetwork 4y ago
    Ask HN: "What does your parent(s) tell their friends that you do?"
    - IncRnd 4y ago
      Thread created! I wonder what replies we will get? Ask HN: What does your Mom tell people about your work or employment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31601004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31601004
user3939382 4y ago
I get my news from Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Kim Iversen, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Matt Tiabbi, Katie Halper, Viva Frei, Louis Rossmann, Alexander Mercouris, among others. That doesn't mean I believe or agree with everything they say, they all have blind spots and biases. But the quality of the news from these sources makes all corporate news look like complete garbage, because it is. I would be shocked if there's anything any corporate news network could do that make make me trust them for one second. Surprisingly, the closest thing to mainstream news coverage worth its salt that I've seen in a very long time is from Buzzfeed News, and on some issues, especially war-related, Tucker Carlson. I am positive that I will live the rest of my life talking to a majority of people primarily informed by corporate news networks (and their fake-populist analogues like reddit) whose raison d'etre is to prop up the same corrupt donors and establishment organizations that have hijacked our government and economy.
- havblue 4y ago
  While I like a lot of the people you mentioned, I think an issue with them is they don't create enough original news and comment more on why existing news sucks. (Which it does) Greenwald might be an exception though.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > But the quality of the news from these sources makes all corporate news look like complete garbage, because it is I don't follow all of those, but the ones I have seen a lot from (especially Greenwald and Taibbi) seem to have abandoned even the pretense of doing news for pure commentary, and commentary that is usually pretty predictable in content from just the subject matter and the current alignment of political factions. I can understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach but mistaking them for quality news sources is... surprising.
  - uoaei 4y ago
    For many who are just getting comfortable with the concept of media criticism more broadly, the wordiness and detail of writers like Greenwald and Taibbi can be enchanting, but that's exactly how reactionaries drive engagement -- by seeming like the heady adult in the room, despite their very predictable arguments and abandonment of "journalism" per se, toward "political commentary".
AlbertCory 4y ago
One time I was on the Lifecycle at the gym and CNN was playing on the big TV. So I was a captive audience for 20 minutes. This was a Monday. That coming Thursday, James Comey was testifying before Congress about something or other. The entire 20 minutes they talked about Comey's upcoming testimony and what he might say. Something that was going to happen in 3 days. And that was the most important news item right then?
dcdc123 4y ago
I feel like you missed an opportunity. > Breaking News: CNN cutting back on over-hyping everything as “breaking news”
ntoskrnl 4y ago
This is great news (no pun intended), but I have to cynically wonder if it's too late. It feels like TV in general has already fully lost younger generations. Other than watching live sports, nobody I know watches cable/broadcast TV. They stream shows/movies from Netflix, and get their news from the internet.
thamer 4y ago
Chris Licht was previously the executive producer and showrunner for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. One of his first major decisions as the new CEO of CNN was to cancel CNN Plus, and it looks like the review of things that need to change is still ongoing. It's not too surprising to see him introduce this no-BS mentality at CNN, the over-hype of minor events is something they would have mocked at The Late Show.
adamrezich 4y ago
anyone else just completely done trusting talking heads—many whom "formerly" worked for intelligence agencies—on the teevee telling you what's important anymore, and, looking back on it, kind of baffled why anyone ever went along with it in the first place?
VonGuard 4y ago
As a retired journalist, I'm just gonna say it: The reason that journalism and reporting a news media tends to become left wing over time is because the people writing the news and trying to stay neutral are paying attention. You cannot possibly pay attention to the real world and not become progressive. To not become compassionate while listening to people's tragedies and injustices all day is inhuman.
- tqi 4y ago
  You don't think the fact that newsrooms are overwhelmingly college educated people with Liberal Arts backgrounds has anything to do with it?
- oaththrowaway 4y ago
  Being compassionate isn't the same thing as being progressive. Totally illogical to think that giving the reigns to the government to solve all injustice is silly. But I guess that makes me inhuman.
- antod 4y ago
  I often see Americans say the media is left wing, but from outside the country it really doesn't look like any US media is left wing. It just seems like "left wing" means a bit critical of republicans. It's more about team affiliation and who you criticise than actual politics.
ginkgotree 4y ago
lol... about time
TedShiller 4y ago
False news would be more appropriate for CNN
slackfan 4y ago
I'll believe it when I see it.
simonswords82 4y ago
It goes back to that old adage of "if everything is urgent nothing is urgent". This may have started over at CNN but it's filtered through to all media outlets. Even the humble BBC News is a victim of it. My wife has the BBC news app on her phone and some of the inane things it'll ping her about under the banner of "breaking news" astounds me.
- sefrost 4y ago
  Also, I'm sure about half of the BBC News notifications are about the USA.
aruanavekar 4y ago
Good decision. I smile with this decision.
Vladimof 4y ago
That's far from being the only (or worst) problem with CNN but I guess it's a start...
pmmertens 4y ago
The current "BREAKING" News story on cnn.com: "Queen pulls out of jubilee service at St Paul's Cathedral due to 'discomfort' during Thursday's parade"
drewcoo 4y ago
That only took what? 30? 40 years to figure out? Talk about fast news cycles!
kosyblysk666 4y ago
too little, too late they lost credibility long time ago... bye, Felicia
29athrowaway 4y ago
CNN is political commentary, not journalism. Journalism is serving as witness for who was not there. CNN is about interpreting stories to mold your opinion, instead of reporting what happened in a neutral way. Also, this: https://youtu.be/FK3vpdmEFow?t=35 https://youtu.be/FK3vpdmEFow?t=35 CNN should not exist, or at least, you should avoid it like the plague.
cheriot 4y ago
Zaslov and Discover got to where they are with low budget reality TV and "hard news" means expensive up front investigation. My skeptical take is that this is more about brand positioning. > "It has become such a fixture on every channel and network that its impact has become lost on the audience." Banner blindness makes sense as a motivation. If authority to use it is too decentralized then it's a tragedy of the commons situation. Every reporter / section editor wants their story to get visibility.
robonerd 4y ago
Good if true, but I'll believe it when I see it. As long as they're doing the 24/7 cable news channel format, they'll inevitably be drawn back into hype and sensationalism to keep that schedule filled. Television news programs done right should be an hour or two a day, like PBS's NewsHour.
FerociousTimes 4y ago
brycewray 4y ago
At least one of them did it, finally. I griped about this in 2019: https://www.brycewray.com/posts/2019/11/curmudgeonish-2019/#breaking-news-is-broken https://www.brycewray.com/posts/2019/11/curmudgeonish-2019/#...
WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
CNN was turned in to a cartoon version of itself once warner acquired it from turner in a quest for more profit. Everything became an important news break and the anchors reported it that way. Great to hear they are racheting it down. I hope this is the first of many changes that brings it back to what it used to be.
ncann 4y ago
Glad to see they're changing for the better. CNN's reputation has gone down a lot in the last decade or so. Reminds me of Obama's joke: "Even reporters have left me. Savannah Guthrie, she has left the White House press corps to host the Today show. Norah O’Donnell left the briefing room to host CBS This Morning. Jake Tapper left journalism to join CNN."
meatsauce 4y ago
Breaking news: cnn is full of shit
SurgeArrest 4y ago
Was following CNN on Twitter in 2008, out of an old habit mostly. Then it was only breaking news feed, and they were posting mostly relevant things. One day they posted something about Britney Spears there and then again. Stopped either watching or following CNN from that point on. Lots of good news sites were still at that time like BBC (which took the same path as CNN in later years) and still follow Reuters and Al Jazeera. Really hope CNN one day will become a news source, like CNN International that is a joy to watch when traveling outside of the USA and Canada (at least it was the last time I watched a few years ago). Will follow CNN once Harry and Meghan or some pop stars will not appear in the headlines for at least a year.
iepathos 4y ago
Can they just generally address over-hyping and sensationalism in their articles? Would be nice to see a return of some journalistic integrity.
racl101 4y ago
I remember before 9/11 you'd rarely see that banner. It truly meant serious shit. Like explosions or shootings. Now you see it for stupid petty (in the grand scheme of things) shit like Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's court battle. And before some of you get your knickers in a knot not saying Johnny Depp's suffering ain't important, but before you'd only see the banner at the end of the trial, not during every fucking court event. Heck, I remember only seeing the banner at the end of OJ's trial and during the white bronco chase. That's it. And that's for a murder trial. Not for a spousal abuse trial. Motherfuckers had to literally die to see that banner. That banner had serious gravitas. Now, I'm conditioned to ignore it most of the time.
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  I saw it when Phil Hartman died, where were you?
lapcat 4y ago
It looks like CNN just replaced "breaking news" with "live updates". There are currently 4 "live updates" on cnn.com, including "Biden to deliver speech on guns tonight", which is obviously not live.
atlgator 4y ago
Now cut back on the gaslighting, hyperbole, and dog whistles.
hereforphone 4y ago
Does anyone outside of an airport still watch CNN?
anm89 4y ago
Good to see they are at least making an effort to move in the right direction. I'm guessing they have a long way to go before they can deliver on the higher level goals here. I don't think I'll ever be a consumer of television news in my life even if it were to improve. I think they have alienated a large group permanantly but maybe they can make it a better medium for the next generation.
BearOso 4y ago
I thought it was funny that rtings.com's live burn-in test (https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/real-life-oled-burn-in-test https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/real-life-oled-burn-in-test) for CNN had the "Breaking News" text clearly visible. If all news is "breaking," is any of it?
Olumde 4y ago
Finally! It seems every time Wolf Blitzer comes on everything is Breaking News https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/22/the-trouble-with-wolf-blitzer-217074/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/22/the-troub...
node-bayarea 4y ago
bradgessler 4y ago
This is one of my main motivations I wrote about at https://legiblenews.com/about https://legiblenews.com/about (item 3 on the list) for creating the super boring news website https://legiblenews.com/ https://legiblenews.com/
johnsanders 4y ago
I sometimes wonder about CNN's relevance as the media world changes. 380+ comments and top of HN suggests it still holds mind share, at least with this cohort.
bluenose69 4y ago
I don't even hear "break news" anymore. It just means "you are watching CNN". The bigger problem with CNN is the excessive focus on attracting eyeballs. I understand the need for that, but CNN takes things beyond reasonable limits. "The aliens have declared war on earth ... oh, hang on, we interrupt this program to show you an hour of Donald Trump riling up a crowd in nowheresville".
euroderf 4y ago
Gee whiz it only took them what, ten or twenty years to figure this out ?

417 points by asplake 4y ago

jsemrau 4y ago

Finally. I hated when every Trump tweet was "breaking news".

dpio 4y ago

Almost feels like a The Onion headline.

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tragictrash 4y ago
It really does feel satirical. Better headline: 'Breaking news: CNN cutting back on over-hyping everything as “breaking news”'
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  I think most things will sound satirical if you rewrite a non-hypocritical statement to sound hypocritical.

guerrilla 4y ago

So, either there is a reason this (whole thing) became less profitable or this is going to fail. Which one is it?

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lame-robot-hoax 4y ago
Probably people became desensitized to it, and new leadership wants them to pivot back to the middle and sit in between MSNBC and Fox. This then fits within their new more serious, investigative, fact based image they’re trying to portray.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Yeah, that's one idea I had... maybe centrist (or eventually right-wing) politics benefit the owners more at this point. I guess we'll see.
rightbyte 4y ago
My feeling is that "clickbaits" chew on reader and viewer trust and eventually you churned it down until it doesn't work anymore.

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winslow 4y ago

When everything is breaking news, nothing is breaking news.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
And there’s no reason to take anything on CNN seriously when they do that. I moved back to printed newspapers and magazines, and don’t regret it, although nothing is instantaneous anymore. I can skip over shenanigans and ads.
vikingerik 4y ago
They kept breaking the news and now it's broken. What did they expect?

winternett 4y ago

They're really desperate for clicks and that has made the quality of their news really decline. Their pages are overrun by ads and even pop-ups now and that makes them really look like a tabloid. Opinion pieces are strewn throughout regular news links, and that really cheapens the brand of news delivery they had. In a highly competitive market, the key to winning is not to imitate competition, it's to decrease overhead costs and to deliver a higher quality product, but in the age of social media, everyone is losing sight of that because of the allure of instant virality and it's getting really toxic to normal human beings more and more every day. They regularly forgo important local and international stories unless they're comical or sensational and it's contradictory to provision of news, and that makes them competitive with every single commentator in podcasts and on social media, which is silly because CNN has far mor resources than that competition. Too many of their stories are subtle ads for big industry products as well, which also erodes trust in their brand and increases potential for conflicts of interest in reporting objectively. It's a terrible tragedy that they really watch reddit mostly to determine what is newsworthy, because Reddit and users there all have agendas of their own... The downvote/upvote system is not transparent and it has been totally compromised by brigading. News stories, especially online should not be competing with each other for noteworthiness, because everyone has a different set of things that are relevant to them... Now we simply have one pipeline for everyone, which is taken over by commercial or sensational interests, and quickly put on mute once it becomes boring or too repetitive, despite lives being deeply affected (e.g. Water pollution in Flint, Michigan). This is why CNN is suffering a decline in revenue and spikes in hype during a time they could really shine most... They're wearing social media blinders instead of returning to the traditional book on news coverage.... That and all the pharmaceutical ads perhaps... (I am not a journalist FTR).

0des 4y ago
> Opinion pieces are strewn throughout regular news links Sometimes I wonder if some folks want news, or just something to confirm their biases.
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  Most political positions are really about group membership and we want to read things that re-affirm that we belong to those groups. The easiest way to do this is to attack some "other".

leach 4y ago

Are they doing anything to restore their credibility though?

0des 4y ago
Probably going to have to wait for an opposing party candidate to get voted in to know for sure as the true litmus test of their resolve.
- bloodyplonker22 4y ago
  Right, like when Trump got voted in and they went absolutely nuts and lost all of the little credibility they had left with outrageous out of context articles. I am a centrist who doesn't think Trump has the best platform out there at all (especially with his extreme isolationism and nationalism), but even I was astounded by how crazily they could make things up, out of context, in order to make him and his administration look bad in any possible way to weak minded headline readers.
  - 0des 4y ago
    How was this comment [dead] immediately right out of the gate? Is there a word filter or does everyone just see red when certain topics come up?
lapcat 4y ago
Did they ever have credibility? CNN came to prominence during the first Iraq invasion, because of their live coverage from inside Iraq. What are the important stories that CNN broke? I can't remember any. They don't seem very big on "investigative" reporting.
- foobarian 4y ago
  Well they don't even do that any more. Where is Christiana Amanpour live in Ukraine ducking artillery shells? Where is the live video from a Maverick missile approaching a target?

bigmattystyles 4y ago

First CNN the way it is packaged and broadcast isn't really news, it's entertainment. In this case, "Breaking" really just means - "latest development" so I don't really mind the word - the problem is the accompanying music and banner font and color scheme used make it seem like it's 9/11. So they say "Breaking", but make you think "Groundbreaking, earth shattering". Hopefully the next things to go will be * when they are interviewing someone that actually made a sacrifice to be on their program, like a civilian from a war zone, etc.. but you can tell the anchor is getting nervous because they have to go to commercial - I can't stand that. * the news you must hear after the break where it took longer to tell you it was coming up after the break than to just tell you the news All these cable channels probably have great reporters and news staffs but getting you the news is secondary to advertising, which is fine, I understand that, it's just the medium is not that well suited since it requires frequent interruptions and baiting you into staying through the break. If it has to be broadcast, the news hour with Judy Woodruff on PBS is the best in the US. Yes, it's curated, can't possibly cover everything, but they make decent editorial decisions.

philwelch 4y ago
> First CNN the way it is packaged and broadcast isn't really news, it's entertainment. I first started noticing this in 2016, when their promotions for their presidential debate coverage reminded me a lot of how boxing matches are promoted.
babypuncher 4y ago
> First CNN the way it is packaged and broadcast isn't really news, it's entertainment. I think this is a problem with all cable news, and is more or less directly responsible for the dramatic polarization of US politics over the last 30 years. Politics looks more like sports now. Irrational fandom and support for one's "team" is fine when it is over something trivial like moving a ball from one end of the field to another. It becomes detrimental when it's over things that actually impact our lives. Hell, before cable news, Republicans and Democrats didn't even get consistent colors on electoral maps. It used to be that blue meant "incumbent party" and red meant "challenging party".

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tpmx 4y ago

[Discovery CEO] Zaslav and mentor and investor John Malone have been public about their push to bring CNN back towards hard news coverage, and away from progressive commentary. I had missed that. That's very welcome - I hope they succeed. I imagine it could be very hard to pull this off after a ~decade of whatever CNN has been doing though. More context: Discovery and WarnerMedia (former CNN parent company) merged back in April. The resulting entity "Warner Bros. Discovery" is led by David Zaslav, Discovery CEO since 2006.

BitwiseFool 4y ago
>" push to bring CNN back towards hard news coverage, and away from progressive commentary." I'd be weary about this. I don't sense CNN was somehow compelled to present progressive commentary and they now want to confront that market pressure, but rather, they employ mostly progressive journalists and that is how they choose to cover the news. I suspect the execs will try to tone it down but progressives aren't known for wanting to be neutral or muted about their causes. Activism and "everything is political" are fundamental aspects of their worldview.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    I make personal observations and share them, you are correct!
- linkingday 4y ago
  seeing CNN and "progressive" in the same context befuddles me - these guys are center-right in almost every sense. I guess that's just where the Overton window is nowadays
  - zmgsabst 4y ago
    If you think CNN is “center right”, you’re revealing your own far left biases.

mkl95 4y ago

I just searched "Breaking news" and CNN International is the first result. It will take them a while to rebrand.

j_walter 4y ago

When the jury reaching a verdict in the Depp/Heard trial is "breaking news" like it plastered across my TV screen the other day...then all hope is lost.

bena 4y ago
The problem is that it is breaking news. It is news about an event that is happening as they speak. The fact that it is frivolous news has no bearing on whether or not it is breaking. But the whole concept is from a time when communication was slow. The news that traveled the fastest was the most important. So when something was denoted as "breaking news", you'd know that it was important enough to be told right now. But today? We practically know of events before they're covered by news organizations. And communication is so quick and cheap that even the most banal information can be bandied about without care. So we can be notified of everything. All news we hear is "breaking". So the term has lost its cachet. We don't need it anymore.
- j_walter 4y ago
  I'd say it's breaking information...but far from newsworthy. Breaking news is an update on the war in Ukraine, a school shooting or other major impact. A defamation trial between two celebrities is not and should not be news.
  - bena 4y ago
    News is recent information. That's the only qualifier. What's happening in Ukraine is just as much news as the fact I'm drinking another cup of coffee. And while I agree that a defamation trial between two celebrities is not noteworthy, I treat it as such by not reading news about it. If I see an article about it, I just scroll past it. But it is news by the very definition of the term. Not all news needs to be of grave import.
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jonny_eh 4y ago

datalopers 4y ago

cnn sucks. fox sucks. msnbc sucks. local news is all managed by sinclair to say the exact same thing. what's worth consuming? ap, reuters, npr?

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rabuse 4y ago
Honestly, I'm so burnt out from the sensationalizing of everything, I don't even care about news anymore. If it doesn't affect me directly (although, even it if does, the hell can I realistically do?), then I just don't care anymore.
- icelancer 4y ago
  I think the uncharitable self-interpretation of this feeling is "burn out" or "not caring" when it might be more accurately described as more responsible information consumption. It's not like we've always had this unfettered access to global heartbreak and problems we can't do anything about plus a responsibility to consume it. The idea that we have to pay attention to everything in the world every minute of the day else we're terrible civil servants is a relatively new phenomenon... and not one that I think is particularly productive, or valid.
  - wccrawford 4y ago
    But it's coupled with the problem that you either consume all the news as the media wants you to, or you cut yourself off almost completely. It's hard to find any news sources that only bring you relevant news, instead of attempting to flood you 24/7 with literally anything that's happening. The closest I've come is to ignore standard news media and be informed via things that filter in through friends, co-workers, and non-standard news sites like HN. I'd love to be better informed of what's going on, but I refuse to subject myself to the firehose.
    - asdff 4y ago

froggertoaster 4y ago

> [Discovery CEO] Zaslav and mentor and investor John Malone have been public about their push to bring CNN back towards hard news coverage, and away from progressive commentary. Laudable, and I hope they succeed. The progressive angle on everything has really undermined a lot of their credibility - and assuming they're able/willing to make the requisite changes internally to make this happen, it will still take years to regain that trust from their audience across the entire spectrum of viewers.

kyleblarson 4y ago

It's amazing to think that some McKinsey consultant convinced CNN to launch CNN+. No one is watching CNN for free and they thought that people would pay for their content?

ozzythecat 4y ago

They have a long ways to go to earn back my trust. CNN is outright just sensational commentary posing to be news. The broadcast outlets don’t focus on commentary, but the selective coverage and specific questions in interviews peak their obvious agenda. Then you have Fox News, who is unashamedly doing the same thing on the right. The pandering to selective political ideologies and pushing particular agendas is pervasive across the American media landscape. I don’t know if it’s better in other countries. I do think think social media gets a lot of criticism and disdain from these outlets, and sure I’m not a fan of FB or Twitter. But traditional American news media in my mind has been stirring this pot for decades, and they seem to get a pass. We talk about breaking up FB, but these American news outlets seem to get a pass.

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daniel-cussen 4y ago
The big thing about CNN is telling people politics is hopeless, and therefore not to vote. And it does this selectively, it sells this as a capability. Sells diminished voter turnout. And broadcasts weaponized racism/rapism accusations, including Inter-Continental Ballistic Rape Accusations, ICBRA's, like (I'm not sure cnn.com partook in this but still, nytimes.com did) those affecting the owner of Techcrunch, Mike Arrington, where he was literally two states away from the victim at the time of the rape (allegedly obviously, being sarcastic, but the media did NOT say allegedly, in effect claimed he was thousands of miles long--at the calf, or at the thigh, whatever, standing in Washington but penetrating in California--rather than question the bitchvictim). So even the editor of a medium-sized newspaper can get slandered in the worst possible way across continents? At that point, I just stop listening to rape accusations in the media no matter what, like you can accuse anybody, at any time, of anything, provided he has a penis[1]. Nowadays, if "they" are white. White male, basically. Just accusing white men of being white men, frankly. Mike Arrington is a white man, news at 11. And let me say something else. I will never vote for a man who has not been accused of rape in the media. If he has been accused of rape, maybe he has my vote maybe he doesn't. Probably does. If he hasn't been accused of rape on the media, he's not a threat to bad people and I will flat out not vote for him. I actually acted on that recently. José Antonio Kast, though I would have normally voted for him, I saw he had no accusations so I didn't go to vote in the Chilean Presidential Elections for him. Obviously because that in a presidential candidate that candidate had strategies to dodge or diffuse or dislodge or discourage rape accusations, nobody that well-known can possibly have a clean record. His opponent, Boric, didn't. It's the most basic form of mudslinging, rape accusations. You can always get some female confidence artist to "come forward," always, it costs like 2000 USD in Chile, if that. It's cheap, it's trivial, there's no cross-examination, victim never gets named in public, if nobody's done it it's because the candidate planned it all out for it not to happen, ie premeditated that same crime. Pretty much is a rapist for real if he's never been accused. And Kast lost the election, due to thousands of votes like mine. Every vote can break a tied election, in fact I tied an election 126 to 126, in high school. Kast lost in part because he had that suspicious clean slate. It's counter-reliable, whatever the media says, the truth is almost exactly to the opposite. [1] I still judge rape accusations made in person to me, or what I witness in person, as I see fit. "He says she says" has no weight, but in the moment, it's a totally different ball-park. I have taken suicidal levels of risk to defend women who asked for help in person, risks I've never seen anybody else take. But not for an accusation in the bitchvictim media.

UberFly 4y ago

Well the mid-terms are on the horizon and they've got candidates to support and others to attack. I don't know how they're going to resist their own DNA.

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OnlyMortal 4y ago

Looks at BBC News app

tiffanyh 4y ago

What I always found interesting is that the AP actually provides other news outlets a "score" on the significance of a new story in their newswire, but because outlets are competing for attention - this score never gets acknowledged and instead, everything is just marked as "breaking news" by the other outlets. If only all outlets adhered to the significance score.

Melatonic 4y ago

I really think that "TV News" aka the current format (either on TV or streaming or anywhere) is going to drastically decline as Gen X and the Boomer generation age out. Do we really want or need a "personality" to deliver us information? Reading just seems so much easier and more efficient

robonerd 4y ago
They're being replaced with twitch streamers who opine on news articles in-between thanking simps for donations. Reading news written by other people, being a personality for lonely people who want parasocial relationships, taking frequent breaks for a word from their sponsors.. it's fundamentally the same thing.
spaetzleesser 4y ago
It may change but it won't get better. I don't see the currently 20 year olds better informed or more moderate. They just get manipulated by different media.

trothamel 4y ago

This is long overdue... I'd have hoped that they would have done it in 2014, when this bit of classic overhype aired. https://i.imgur.com/2y3K1w2.png https://i.imgur.com/2y3K1w2.png "Breaking News: Titanic Sunk 102 Years Ago Tonight"

billti 4y ago
I recall one day seeing the red banner on the top of the CNN site that read, “BREAKING NEWS: No update on the…” followed by whatever was the hot story at the time. For real. It was both comical and tragic.
omoikane 4y ago
Came here to look for this exact example, was not disappointed :)
anm89 4y ago
I've never seen that. That's amazing

mdeck_ 4y ago

Next perhaps they can get Wolf Blitzer to stop shouting literally every sentence that comes out of his mouth as if it is all “BREAKING NEWS.”

the_biot 4y ago
I just hope they take Don "pandering propaganda" Lemon off the air. Hard to take them seriously as a news source when you see that show.
- adamrezich 4y ago
  what if we all just agreed that "teevee news presenter personalities" were a dumb cultural relic of the pre-internet era & as a society moved on from accepting the validity of their entire schtick?
  - robonerd 4y ago
    It won't happen. There's a lot of demand for media personalities, particularly from lonely people who like to form parasocial relationships with these celebrities. Pithily put: cable news personalities are to lonely boomers what twitch streamers are to lonely zoomers.
    - babypuncher 4y ago
      I guess us Millennials are stuck feigning conversations with our morning avocado toast.

kringo 4y ago

finally!

jillesvangurp 4y ago

The problem with crying wolf all the time is that people stop believing you have anything important to say. I don't recall the last time that CNN broke any news. Probably early nineties or so. It would be news worthy if they did.

kylehotchkiss 4y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/us/cnn-and-foxs-supreme-court-mistake.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/29/us/cnn-and-foxs-supreme-c... One time they were so desperate to be first, they reported the wrong result of a supreme court ruling.
- cwkoss 4y ago
  Can't be scooped if you make up the news yourself
ModernMech 4y ago
> I don't recall the last time that CNN broke any news. They just broke some news today, it's on their front page: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/02/politics/meadows-texts-january-6-trump-stop-violence/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/02/politics/meadows-texts-januar...
- pessimizer 4y ago
  /s?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

gossamer 4y ago

I wish they had prepended "Breaking News: " to the title of this story.

egberts1 4y ago

Well, that made me laugh. Thanks for the chuckle, CNN.

thepasswordis 4y ago

Sounds cool, except: look at CNN's frontpage right now.

kylecordes 4y ago

The fundamental challenge for all news channels: The natural, normal, expected behavior is to have big spikes of viewership when something major happens. Then a radically lower level of ongoing viewership, because well-adjusted productive people just check the news briefly every day. This is not compelling at all from a business point of view, hence the relentless search for any and always to drive constant viewership.

bsedlm 4y ago

if all news are breaking news, then there are no breaking news

lazyeye 4y ago

The mainstream media has no business model anymore, its been destroyed by the internet. So now they just generate provocative content as cheaply as possible to attract eyeballs for advertisers. And no content is cheaper to produce than opinion...

productceo 4y ago

Lost opportunity to ironically call this news "breaking"

rvz 4y ago

So it has been finally admitted. No wonder many people didn't realise that they just got fooled and manipulated back in 2016 and on wards. Perhaps that's why CNN needed so many clicks at the time and this is why they lived up to being the tag-line that they have always hated as being 'fake news' media. So it really unsurprising.

StevePerkins 4y ago

This story makes me smile. Back in the late-2000's, I worked at CNN on a 12-month contract. While there, I built a predecessor to the current "Breaking News" website banner. At least at the time, Turner did not allow contractors to extend beyond the 12-month mark. So when my contract came up, they offered to convert me over to perm. I declined, because my interests lay more on the backend side of the tech stack, and my role there had been far more frontend-focused than I wanted for the long term. Fast-forward 10 to 15 years, and I've had a lot of experiences that I'm very proud of. I've built concurrent systems that scaled to impressive levels of data. I've built event busses that moved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of financial transactions per year. Etc. STILL, "my son built the Breaking News banner on cnn.com!" is the thing that my mom tells her friends. It's the only thing that my wife ever understood about what I do for a living. There is such power in the visual, and in the consumer-side. In a very real sense, this silly thing was the crowning achievement of my career... and it was about two days of work and a few hundred lines of HTML and jQuery.

brightball 4y ago
Related, I've often thought a resume site like LinkedIn should include a "What does your mom tell her friends that you do?" section. :-) It would probably be pretty entertaining.
- jdhawk 4y ago
  this is an awesome idea. a newer title for an executive summary for less traditional companies.
- Karawebnetwork 4y ago
  Ask HN: "What does your parent(s) tell their friends that you do?"
  - IncRnd 4y ago
    Thread created! I wonder what replies we will get? Ask HN: What does your Mom tell people about your work or employment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31601004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31601004

user3939382 4y ago

I get my news from Glenn Greenwald, Chris Hedges, Kim Iversen, Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, Matt Tiabbi, Katie Halper, Viva Frei, Louis Rossmann, Alexander Mercouris, among others. That doesn't mean I believe or agree with everything they say, they all have blind spots and biases. But the quality of the news from these sources makes all corporate news look like complete garbage, because it is. I would be shocked if there's anything any corporate news network could do that make make me trust them for one second. Surprisingly, the closest thing to mainstream news coverage worth its salt that I've seen in a very long time is from Buzzfeed News, and on some issues, especially war-related, Tucker Carlson. I am positive that I will live the rest of my life talking to a majority of people primarily informed by corporate news networks (and their fake-populist analogues like reddit) whose raison d'etre is to prop up the same corrupt donors and establishment organizations that have hijacked our government and economy.

havblue 4y ago
While I like a lot of the people you mentioned, I think an issue with them is they don't create enough original news and comment more on why existing news sucks. (Which it does) Greenwald might be an exception though.
dragonwriter 4y ago
> But the quality of the news from these sources makes all corporate news look like complete garbage, because it is I don't follow all of those, but the ones I have seen a lot from (especially Greenwald and Taibbi) seem to have abandoned even the pretense of doing news for pure commentary, and commentary that is usually pretty predictable in content from just the subject matter and the current alignment of political factions. I can understand finding them comforting if your ideological biases align with their approach but mistaking them for quality news sources is... surprising.
- uoaei 4y ago
  For many who are just getting comfortable with the concept of media criticism more broadly, the wordiness and detail of writers like Greenwald and Taibbi can be enchanting, but that's exactly how reactionaries drive engagement -- by seeming like the heady adult in the room, despite their very predictable arguments and abandonment of "journalism" per se, toward "political commentary".

AlbertCory 4y ago

One time I was on the Lifecycle at the gym and CNN was playing on the big TV. So I was a captive audience for 20 minutes. This was a Monday. That coming Thursday, James Comey was testifying before Congress about something or other. The entire 20 minutes they talked about Comey's upcoming testimony and what he might say. Something that was going to happen in 3 days. And that was the most important news item right then?

dcdc123 4y ago

I feel like you missed an opportunity. > Breaking News: CNN cutting back on over-hyping everything as “breaking news”

ntoskrnl 4y ago

This is great news (no pun intended), but I have to cynically wonder if it's too late. It feels like TV in general has already fully lost younger generations. Other than watching live sports, nobody I know watches cable/broadcast TV. They stream shows/movies from Netflix, and get their news from the internet.

thamer 4y ago

Chris Licht was previously the executive producer and showrunner for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. One of his first major decisions as the new CEO of CNN was to cancel CNN Plus, and it looks like the review of things that need to change is still ongoing. It's not too surprising to see him introduce this no-BS mentality at CNN, the over-hype of minor events is something they would have mocked at The Late Show.

adamrezich 4y ago

anyone else just completely done trusting talking heads—many whom "formerly" worked for intelligence agencies—on the teevee telling you what's important anymore, and, looking back on it, kind of baffled why anyone ever went along with it in the first place?

VonGuard 4y ago

As a retired journalist, I'm just gonna say it: The reason that journalism and reporting a news media tends to become left wing over time is because the people writing the news and trying to stay neutral are paying attention. You cannot possibly pay attention to the real world and not become progressive. To not become compassionate while listening to people's tragedies and injustices all day is inhuman.

tqi 4y ago
You don't think the fact that newsrooms are overwhelmingly college educated people with Liberal Arts backgrounds has anything to do with it?
oaththrowaway 4y ago
Being compassionate isn't the same thing as being progressive. Totally illogical to think that giving the reigns to the government to solve all injustice is silly. But I guess that makes me inhuman.
antod 4y ago
I often see Americans say the media is left wing, but from outside the country it really doesn't look like any US media is left wing. It just seems like "left wing" means a bit critical of republicans. It's more about team affiliation and who you criticise than actual politics.

ginkgotree 4y ago

lol... about time

TedShiller 4y ago

False news would be more appropriate for CNN

slackfan 4y ago

I'll believe it when I see it.

simonswords82 4y ago

It goes back to that old adage of "if everything is urgent nothing is urgent". This may have started over at CNN but it's filtered through to all media outlets. Even the humble BBC News is a victim of it. My wife has the BBC news app on her phone and some of the inane things it'll ping her about under the banner of "breaking news" astounds me.

sefrost 4y ago
Also, I'm sure about half of the BBC News notifications are about the USA.

aruanavekar 4y ago

Good decision. I smile with this decision.

Vladimof 4y ago

That's far from being the only (or worst) problem with CNN but I guess it's a start...

pmmertens 4y ago

The current "BREAKING" News story on cnn.com: "Queen pulls out of jubilee service at St Paul's Cathedral due to 'discomfort' during Thursday's parade"

drewcoo 4y ago

That only took what? 30? 40 years to figure out? Talk about fast news cycles!

kosyblysk666 4y ago

too little, too late they lost credibility long time ago... bye, Felicia

29athrowaway 4y ago

CNN is political commentary, not journalism. Journalism is serving as witness for who was not there. CNN is about interpreting stories to mold your opinion, instead of reporting what happened in a neutral way. Also, this: https://youtu.be/FK3vpdmEFow?t=35 https://youtu.be/FK3vpdmEFow?t=35 CNN should not exist, or at least, you should avoid it like the plague.

cheriot 4y ago

Zaslov and Discover got to where they are with low budget reality TV and "hard news" means expensive up front investigation. My skeptical take is that this is more about brand positioning. > "It has become such a fixture on every channel and network that its impact has become lost on the audience." Banner blindness makes sense as a motivation. If authority to use it is too decentralized then it's a tragedy of the commons situation. Every reporter / section editor wants their story to get visibility.

robonerd 4y ago

Good if true, but I'll believe it when I see it. As long as they're doing the 24/7 cable news channel format, they'll inevitably be drawn back into hype and sensationalism to keep that schedule filled. Television news programs done right should be an hour or two a day, like PBS's NewsHour.

FerociousTimes 4y ago

brycewray 4y ago

At least one of them did it, finally. I griped about this in 2019: https://www.brycewray.com/posts/2019/11/curmudgeonish-2019/#breaking-news-is-broken https://www.brycewray.com/posts/2019/11/curmudgeonish-2019/#...

WheelsAtLarge 4y ago

CNN was turned in to a cartoon version of itself once warner acquired it from turner in a quest for more profit. Everything became an important news break and the anchors reported it that way. Great to hear they are racheting it down. I hope this is the first of many changes that brings it back to what it used to be.

ncann 4y ago

Glad to see they're changing for the better. CNN's reputation has gone down a lot in the last decade or so. Reminds me of Obama's joke: "Even reporters have left me. Savannah Guthrie, she has left the White House press corps to host the Today show. Norah O’Donnell left the briefing room to host CBS This Morning. Jake Tapper left journalism to join CNN."

meatsauce 4y ago

Breaking news: cnn is full of shit

SurgeArrest 4y ago

Was following CNN on Twitter in 2008, out of an old habit mostly. Then it was only breaking news feed, and they were posting mostly relevant things. One day they posted something about Britney Spears there and then again. Stopped either watching or following CNN from that point on. Lots of good news sites were still at that time like BBC (which took the same path as CNN in later years) and still follow Reuters and Al Jazeera. Really hope CNN one day will become a news source, like CNN International that is a joy to watch when traveling outside of the USA and Canada (at least it was the last time I watched a few years ago). Will follow CNN once Harry and Meghan or some pop stars will not appear in the headlines for at least a year.

iepathos 4y ago

Can they just generally address over-hyping and sensationalism in their articles? Would be nice to see a return of some journalistic integrity.

racl101 4y ago

I remember before 9/11 you'd rarely see that banner. It truly meant serious shit. Like explosions or shootings. Now you see it for stupid petty (in the grand scheme of things) shit like Johnny Depp and Amber Heard's court battle. And before some of you get your knickers in a knot not saying Johnny Depp's suffering ain't important, but before you'd only see the banner at the end of the trial, not during every fucking court event. Heck, I remember only seeing the banner at the end of OJ's trial and during the white bronco chase. That's it. And that's for a murder trial. Not for a spousal abuse trial. Motherfuckers had to literally die to see that banner. That banner had serious gravitas. Now, I'm conditioned to ignore it most of the time.

selimthegrim 4y ago
I saw it when Phil Hartman died, where were you?

lapcat 4y ago

It looks like CNN just replaced "breaking news" with "live updates". There are currently 4 "live updates" on cnn.com, including "Biden to deliver speech on guns tonight", which is obviously not live.

atlgator 4y ago

Now cut back on the gaslighting, hyperbole, and dog whistles.

hereforphone 4y ago

Does anyone outside of an airport still watch CNN?

anm89 4y ago

Good to see they are at least making an effort to move in the right direction. I'm guessing they have a long way to go before they can deliver on the higher level goals here. I don't think I'll ever be a consumer of television news in my life even if it were to improve. I think they have alienated a large group permanantly but maybe they can make it a better medium for the next generation.

BearOso 4y ago

I thought it was funny that rtings.com's live burn-in test (https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/real-life-oled-burn-in-test https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/real-life-oled-burn-in-test) for CNN had the "Breaking News" text clearly visible. If all news is "breaking," is any of it?

Olumde 4y ago

Finally! It seems every time Wolf Blitzer comes on everything is Breaking News https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/22/the-trouble-with-wolf-blitzer-217074/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/02/22/the-troub...

node-bayarea 4y ago

bradgessler 4y ago

This is one of my main motivations I wrote about at https://legiblenews.com/about https://legiblenews.com/about (item 3 on the list) for creating the super boring news website https://legiblenews.com/ https://legiblenews.com/

johnsanders 4y ago

I sometimes wonder about CNN's relevance as the media world changes. 380+ comments and top of HN suggests it still holds mind share, at least with this cohort.

bluenose69 4y ago

I don't even hear "break news" anymore. It just means "you are watching CNN". The bigger problem with CNN is the excessive focus on attracting eyeballs. I understand the need for that, but CNN takes things beyond reasonable limits. "The aliens have declared war on earth ... oh, hang on, we interrupt this program to show you an hour of Donald Trump riling up a crowd in nowheresville".

euroderf 4y ago

Gee whiz it only took them what, ten or twenty years to figure this out ?