CNN in Trouble

I was listening to a piece about how CNN has drastically lost market share.  The general reason identified is that while FOX appeals to conservatives and NBCNews (formerly MSNBC) appeals to liberals, CNN has at least had the aim of neutrality.

But most people aren't interested in neutrality. It's not exciting.  Where's the passion in Spock as a host?  People want to hear someone who foments the passions they already have.

Yep, that's pretty much my sense of things.  I at least think I've noticed recently that Chris Matthews on NBC has started badgering conservatives on his show.  Sad.  I used to think he more or less tried to be neutral.  But you've got to earn a living...

Passage for the Day

I went to a certain news website this morning and immediately went from relatively happy to a sense of crisis, fear, and alarm. One article captured the site well, a piece criticizing Obama for leaving the phrase "they shall renew their strength" out of his quotation of Isaiah 40.  It's no wonder so much of America is angry, I thought.  How can anyone with the Spirit of Christ take much of this, I thought.  I was tempted to respond in kind.

To purify myself, I give you this passage from someone this website would attack if he had a different name and was saying this today:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You will love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore, love the whole way, as your heavenly Father loves the whole way."

FOX: "Bailout clipped taxpayers for $25 Billion"...

If you can't see, I'm smiling.  This FOX news article is about the fact that the current estimate for what the TARP bailout will cost the American people in the end is $25 billion.  The initial payout was $700 billion and the current final tally is half a previous estimate that was itself considered overly optimistic.

So what I'm smiling at is FOX's begrudging wording of the news in the worse way possible.  The news is that Bush/Obama's bailouts saved the economy and quickly stabilized the world economy for way, way less than anyone hoped.  The news is that Bush and Obama's decision was the right one and that FOX and the Tea Party were wrong on this one.

But I will take the faint praise of the FOX article anyway: "The bailout fund, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, became hugely unpopular with the public and in Congress. Advocates and even some critics, however, credit it for stabilizing the financial sector in the wake of Wall Street's meltdown in 2008."  Read between the lines: even economists who oppose the TARP bailout recognize that it stabilized the financial sector. 

The anger of the American people, at least on this particular subject, was misplaced, based on ignorance, and fanned by conservative rabble rousers who were wrong, at least on this one.