CNN sucks

Salon:

When Chief Justice John Roberts shocked the world by voting to uphold “Obamacare” (with a narrow, conservative argument that leaves future Commerce Clause-related decisions up in the air), CNN got so excited for some breaking news that they reported the wrong breaking news.

Various unnamed CNN employees are apparently appalled and pissed off at the sloppiness. And they should be!

This is extra embarrassing because every news outlet that took an extra minute to have someone read the decision before they announced the takeaway got it right. (CNN was joined in its wrongness by… Fox News.)

According to the sort of people for whom CNN’s ratings woes reflect a moral failing of the American people as opposed to a series of boneheaded decisions by CNN executives, CNN is posting its worst ratings in 20 years because people only want to watch biased news that they agree with, and they no longer care about Original Reporting and Unbiased Fact-Based Journalism. In reality, CNN is failing because CNN sucks. It doesn’t fill its daylight hours with hard-hitting reporting from far-flung locales, it fills it with Wolf Blitzer sputtering softballs at politicians followed by shouting partisans (from both sides!) having idiotic arguments. For hours. CNN staffers seem to understand this. From Dylan Byers’ recent Politico story on CNN’s ratings woes:

“It’s frustrating to hear our leadership talk about the exemplary journalism we do, then turn on the TV during the day and see CNN doing another story about ‘birthers’ or ‘tips for dining out alone,’” said one staffer.

 Continue reading here.