Since CNN is now better known as the Most Busted Name In News (and on Jeopardy, to boot), Andrew Klaven is proffering all sorts of new slogans for the beleaguered network.
Update: Not to be confused with the far more benign LOLcats, MSMdog above via Theo Spark.
As Allahpundit notes at Hot Air, “HuffPo, [CNN's] Rick Sanchez retract phony Limbaugh quotes”:
No harm in admitting the lie now that his NFL bid’s dead. First, via the Standard, comes this belated HuffPo postscript to a post that’s three years old:
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this post contained quotes attributed to Rush Limbaugh, which Limbaugh has since denied making. As is our policy when a fact in a blog post is called into question, we gave its author 24 hours to substantiate the quote. Since he has not been able to do so, the quotes have been deleted from the post.
And now here’s Sanchez, kinda sorta apologizing — on Twitter — for airing the bogus slavery quote on his show earlier this week:
i’ve know rush. in person,i like him. his rhetoric,however is inexcusably divisive. he’s right tho. we didn’t confirm quote. our bad.
Proof that Limbaugh’s threat to sue people over this is being taken seriously? Eh, I doubt it. As I said before, it’s really hard for a public figure to prove defamation. He’d basically have to show that his accusers knew the quote was false and published it anyway; both HuffPo and Sanchez would reply that they didn’t know and were merely lazy, sloppy, negligent reporters in relying on published sources for a quote that they hadn’t fact-checked. The retractions, I suspect, are motivated less by fear of being sued than as a lame nod to journalistic ethics. “See, we correct our highly incendiary errors. …Eventually.”
Even prior to Sanchez’s belated admission, fellow CNN colleague Anderson Cooper (he of the earlier tea bagging references) was distancing himself, noting that “on this program, we did not use the wrong quotes” — unlike Sanchez. And as Tim Graham writes at Newsbusters, “CNN Anchor Rick Sanchez Is Assembling a Pile of Retractions.”
In contrast to the story that permanently tainted CNN’s reputation at the start of the decade, this was “news” they really should have kept to themselves.
As for the HuffPo, hey, first they came for Rush, then they came for…
So where does Rush, the NFL, and the next would-be NFL team owner go from here? Elsewhere at Pajamas HQ, John Hawkins has “5 Takeaway Lessons.”
Related: One of Mark Steyn’s readers notes:
As I am sure you are aware, the fake Limbaugh quotes have been traced to the Rush Limbaugh Wikiquote page, dating from July of 2005 (see the following link to see when the quotes were added). The Jack Huberman book that most people source for these quotes did not come out until the following year.
The quotes were added by a user with the IP address of 69.64.213.146. This address has been used mostly to make changes to the article about Rush, but also Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, Rush, James Dobson and Sara Palin from 2005 until earlier this year.
While others have noted this in various forums, no one seems to have made the connection that this IP address is used as a gateway by the law firm Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP (see here, for example) that all users from that IP address come from the pbwt.com domain.)
Given the likelihood that Limbaugh will sue over this, I find it interesting that the source of these bogus quotes is probably a lawyer…
“Developing”, as Matt Drudge would say.
Update: A Corner reader questions CNN’s timing:
The media was fact checking the SNL Obama skit while preparing the stories on Rush. CNN is literally more interested in “disproving” satire about Obama than bothering to confirm bizarre and scandalous things said by Rush. I am literally amazed.
I’m not. Ted Turner apparently wants his old company back. How could he do any worse than this latest incarnation of CNN?
Hugh Hewitt pens a memo to Jonathan Klein, the president of CNN, regarding his network’s coverage of Iran’s efforts to aquire the bomb, and reminds him, “There isn’t a bigger story or a more important one. Good luck in getting it right this time. Your choice very likely to be the only thing you will ever be remembered for”:
Congratulations on the approach of your fifth anniversary at the helm of CNN/US. What a great moment during which to exercise leadership over one of the most important media platforms in the world. It may be “the most busted name in news” in the eyes of many, but the reach of CNN’s programming is still vast. It remains the default network for center-left elites who cannot abide the buffoonery that MSNBC has sunk to, and even those of us who watch Fox News with great regularity are still checking in on Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper and a few others.
There’s lots to criticize, of course, with the refrains from the center-right as familiar to you as the chorus from “American Pie.” (Please, no more fringe extremists held up as “representing” conservatism generally or Tea Party activists specifically.) While fixing these flaws would increase your audience and your credibility on many issues, these are small points compared with the looming world crisis. What really matters right now is that CNN get the Iran story right and that you not become the Geoffrey Dawson of the new millennium.
You no doubt know of [Geoffrey] Dawson and his shameful record of abetting the appeasement of Neville Chamberlain throughout the ’30s from his post as editor of the Times of London, in its day the most powerful news platform in the world. Dawson emerges as a loathsome character in the pages of William Manchester’s “Alone,” the narrative of Winston Churchill’s wilderness years from 1932 to 1940.
At every turn, Dawson supported and encouraged the British leadership that refused to confront Hitler. “Appeasement became evangelical,” Manchester concluded. “[I]ndeed, for some the line between foreign policy and religion became blurred.” Dawson was one of the doctrine’s pre-eminent preachers, blocking contrary voices from the pages of the Times, cheerleading Chamberlain every step along his ill-fated way.
The question now is whether the mainstream media, and specifically CNN, are going to revive Dawson’s role on the world stage or work to avoid such another disastrous abdication of the media’s job to report the world as it is, not as the Left — and more specifically, the forces of appeasement — would like it to be.
Klein (who inadvertently gave Pajamas Media its name in attempting to defend former employee Dan Rather) replaced Eason Jordan at the helm of CNN. Jordan was happy to shill for Saddam Hussein. Why should we expect anything different from his successor?
CNN jumps the gun, reports Coast Guard training exercise in the Potomac today as an actual attack, as Ed Morrissey writes:
Earlier today, CNN broke news that a Coast Guard ship had opened fire on another boat in the Potomac area, expending ten rounds, as Washington DC spent the day commemorating the 9/11 attacks. Later, it turned out that no shots had been fired at all. CNN reacted to radio traffic of a Coast Guard drill and ran with the story without confirming it. Now, Jeanne Meserve says people will demand answers, presumably from the government — but perhaps viewers would like some answers from CNN instead.
Ed adds, “Mark your calendars for this one, because I agree completely with Robert Gibbs on this”:
The “panic” over the exercise originated entirely at CNN, due to their rush to go live with a story before properly verifying it. They have a reporter at the White House and people at the Pentagon. Why not ask first whether the Coast Guard had an exercise? Are they that desperate for a scoop?
The military of the US is on constant duty, and the best way to ensure that they operate at their best capacity is constant training. Today, while significant for our nation, is just another day to prepare for our defense to the Coast Guard and the other branches of the service. No one would have “panicked” over this exercise or even known of its existence had CNN not freaked out over a radio communication.
This is the day we’re supposed to honor our fighting men and women for their dedication and service in defending the nation, not quibble about normal exercises.
On the other hand, it’s also a reminder that CNN’s lax journalistic standards exist far beyond its political “reporting.”
Meanwhile, a telling Freudian slip from Gibbs.
Related: This just in from Jim Treacher: “BREAKING: Shots Fired in CNN Cafeteria | UPDATE: CNN Cafeteria Bans Microwave Popcorn.”Heh.™
CNN co-founder Reese Schonfeld tells the Huffington Post (huh, why would a CNN man go there to post?) that “seven months after Barack Obama’s victory, CNN’s ratings have gone down the drain”:
Nine years ago, when FoxNews sprinted past CNN to become America’s number one news network, I attributed its ratings gains to the election of George Bush and the triumph of Fox-watching conservatives. I figured conservatives would be savoring their victory while liberals were averting their eyes in disgust. For the next eight years, I measured political sentiment in the United States by comparing the size of the FoxNews audience with the combined size of the CNN/MSNBC audience. In this space, I even predicted, with reasonable accuracy, the percent by which Barack Obama won the election based on the split in the news audience.
Now, seven months after Barack Obama’s victory, CNN’s ratings have gone down the drain. From May of last year to May of this year, CNN lost 22% of its total primetime audience. MSNBC was down 2%, while FoxNews was up 24%. In the key advertising demographic (25-54), Fox was up 31%, CNN was down 37% and MSNBC was down 26%. In hard numbers, Fox had 109,000 more viewers than last year while CNN lost 113,000. CNN averaged fewer than 200,000 25-54 viewers in primetime. Even MSNBC averaged more viewers than that.
Total day was nearly as bad, with Fox up 24% and CNN down 7%. MSNBC was down 2% in total viewing. Fox is beating CNN almost two-to-one in most categories.
There’s no need to throw any more numbers at you–Fox is gaining, CNN is wilting. Why is this happening when the country still seems about 58-42 in favor of Obama? My best guess is the passion of those who detest Democrats, liberals, and in particular, Barack Obama.
You don’t think it could also have anything to do with moments such as this and this, do you? And as P.J. Gladnick of Newsbusters asks, “Maybe the TV audience is growing weary of the MSM treating Barack Obama as Sort of God and want some realistic news coverage of his administration.”
Then there’s this quote from Reese, which Gladnick also highlights:
But, then again, maybe all of the above are wrong. Maybe it’s simply the need for an enemy, the desire to detest is greater than the power to tolerate; maybe it’s the need to blame somebody else for the bad things that are happening in our lives that drives viewers to Fox. Perhaps those viewers are the next generation of the rich socialites in the old New Yorker cartoon, who dressed up to go to the newsreel theatre and hiss FDR*. Only now they can do it at home, watching FoxNews. Maybe the joy of defeat is underestimated.
Only if you have to smile and go on the air at the Most Busted Name In News.
Unlike Reese’s fantasies that Fox has millions watching it who dress in spats and talk like Thurston Howell, Fox is a populist channel, not an elitist one. That’s in sharp contrast to CNN, whose on-air personalities literally sneer at the middle class when they spot a thoughtcrime occurring, when they’re not calling them Nazis. And plenty of wealthy California and Northeast Corridor liberals were thrilled to vote for Obama, especially after CNN spent 2008 carrying his water and avoiding substantive discussions of the candidate’s myriad of flaws, to the point where, in late November of 2008, a journalist at CNN International could write with a straight face about the newly elected president, “The Americans who are comparing him to those remarkable predecessors are putting a lot of faith in a man they barely know.”
If only he could have passed the word to his employer duing the election year.
As Hugh Hewitt writes, “Susan Roesgen Brands CNN.” Though they earned the sobriquet in the headline of Hugh’s post (and quoted above) long before the crossfire train wrecks involving Roesgen and Anderson Cooper:
The Most Busted Name In News–yet again.
For a look at whom the viewing public actually considers the most trusted name in news, click here.
It might save time for the person who wasn’t planted in the audience by CNN for yesterday’s Democratic Debate to identify himself. Hugh Hewitt (who stopped by this week’s episode of PJM Political) once dubbed CNN “The most busted name in news“, and it sounds like they may have been busted yet again.
Update: More at Gateway Pundit.
Last night I looked at CNN’s continuely declining ratings; BizzyBlog explains why, with an exploration of the pioneering news network’s decade-long reign of error. Meanwhile, Stone Dead Parrots wonders when CNN’s stone dead ratings will be reflected in its ad revenues.
(Title via Hugh Hewitt.)
The New York Post notes:
The steamy e-mails that landed a CNN reporter in the news and out of a job detailed more than his adulterous affair – they revealed that the Africa correspondent apparently admitted paying militiamen to help him stage a story, according to several sources.
Wow, CNN accused of faking news–I’m shocked, shocked!
Flashback: CNN–”The most busted name in news“.
AP is reporting that CNN news executive Eason Jordan quits:
