I caught Crooks & Liars once again calling, like so many others, for CNN to dump Lou Dobbs.
Personally, I got to thinking why I haven't actually seen his show. I figured it out pretty fast. See, most of my CNN-watching (which isn't very heavy to begin with) is done from hotel rooms. Foreign hotel rooms. I haven't been watching CNN. I've been watching CNN International...
CNN International is quite different. Look at the schedule - no Lou Dobbs. The schedule is generally more 'serious' and business-oriented. Why is that? American viewers need their fluff? It's not because it's politics. They still have lots and lots of US politics.
The reason is simple: American Republicans have pulled towards the lunatic fringe. Bill Maher got it right: "The Democrats have moved to the right, and the Republicans have moved to a mental hospital." Nobody in the rest of the world wants to see American Republicans. They're insane! In most developed countries, conservatives are still sane people. They're saying "Well, I think we should lower taxes.." not "The President is a Kenyan communist!"
Personally, I find even CNN International to be too ridiculous to be watchable. Last time I switched the channel in disgust. It was "The Situation Room" and Wolf Blitzer was talking to some panel who were talking about Larry King's interview with Michael Jackson's gynecologist or something. I don't know what's worse, that they consider that legitimate news, or that they apparently don't even want to bother to give the impression of journalistic integrity by handing the thing off to an 'entertainment journalist' rather than their 'serious' journalist Blitzer.
Almost anything is better (except of course Fox News. Who I've almost never seen abroad) BBC World, please! But even Al-Jazeera's more interesting than most of CNN's stuff. Deutsche Welle is great - it's well worth sitting through a few minutes of Bundesliga results to get the no-drama German reporting.
Getting back to CNNi: On top of the fact that they show "The Daily Show". Because that's the part of Republican insanity that the rest of the world does get. Why don't they show that in the USA? (okay, broadcasting rights aside, you still get my point)
To the Americans, CNN shows: Lou Dobbs.
To the rest of the world, CNN shows: Jon Stewart eviscerating Lou Dobbs! Their own guy!
In Stephen Colbert's interview with Christine Amanpour, Colbert almost fell out of character for a moment after finding out that her interview show with an international angle will be broadcast five days a week on CNN International and once a week in the USA. Saying: "That proves Americans don't care about the rest of the world.."
CNN is implicitly agreeing with that with their programming. I suppose they'd say they're just meeting the demands of the US market. Which is apparently a market of idiots. But as an American, I refuse to believe that we're actually more idiotic. I think the real question is: Why does CNN cater to American idiocy, when they don't do so in the rest of the world?
The BBC doesn't 'dumb it down' for their home market. I'm pretty sure Al-Jazeera's Arabic version wasn't having panel debates about Michael Jackson. Or Shaaban Abdel Rahim, or whoever.