I’m late to the firing of CNN CEO Chris Licht, so I wanted to zoom out a bit and look at the failed strategy of applying philosopher’s Thomas Nagel’s “View To Nowhere” to change CNN by the likes of Warner Brothers Discovery CEO David Zaslov and his major shareholder right wing billionaire John Malone. Supposedly, CNN would stop showing a liberal bias and just present the “facts” from the left and the right while taking no position on the merits of either side on any issue. That’s the stated mission that Licht was tasked with, and once accomplished, the value of CNN as a impartial presenter of facts and truth would rise to great heights along with the ratings. Jay Rosen calls this the “View To Nowhere” journalism that journalists so dearly want to present to the public. It failed at CNN for numerous reasons, and Zaslov and Malone and other adherents are going to continue applying this supposed epistemological tool as cover for their real agenda: creation of more right wing news outlets.
Translation: It the old “Fair and Balanced” lie used by Fox Propaganda with some different fancy wording thrown in to convince the rubes that right wing economics and politics is the way to go.
So instead of getting into the weeds of Nagel’s “View to Nowhere,” lets stay at a higher altitude and just look at the larger forces at work here, specifically right wing billionaire John Malone. He’s the major share holder at Warner Brothers Discovery, and Malone yelled from the rooftops that he wanted changes at CNN, which is now owned by Warner Brothers Discovery.
That billionaire is John Malone, a legend in the cable TV business and one who has deep and longstanding ties with David Zaslav, the CEO of WBD. People close to both men insist that Zaslav is remaking CNN because he wants to for both business and editorial reasons, and not because Malone has told him to.
But complicating that narrative is the fact that Malone has repeatedly wished, in public, for CNN to remake itself. And his prescription happens to sync with the new CNN agenda: a plan to steer the channel away from what Malone and others call a liberal bias they say muddles opinion and news. And to shift it toward a supposedly centrist, just-the-facts bent.
“I would like to see CNN evolve”
In November 2021, Malone sat down for an hour-long interview with CNBC, where he held forth on the state of the pay TV business — where he made his $10 billion fortune — and plenty of other topics.
One of them was CNN — at the time, owned by AT&T, but scheduled to become part of WBD, a company that Malone would own a piece of along with a seat on its board. Malone waved away one bit of recurring speculation — that WBD would want to sell CNN — and then offered some programming advice for the new company:
“I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing,” he said. Then he suggested a model: “Fox News, in my opinion, has followed an interesting trajectory of trying to have ‘news’ news, I mean some actual journalism, embedded in a program schedule of all opinions.”
Malone’s comments didn’t resonate much beyond a couple of places: At Fox News, which responded with glee, and inside CNN, where they sounded alarm bells.
Those bells started ringing again last week when the company pushed CNN media reporter Brian Stelter out of his job. As I’ve reported, some people in and outside CNN believed there was a direct through line between Malone’s perspective on CNN and Stelter’s departure. The theory: Stelter, a frequent critic of Fox News, was let go either at Malone’s direct urging or by managers who wanted to please the investor.
So out you go you dirty, dirty dish rag you Brian Stelter! Notice all that BS about the “just the facts” Ma’am from Dragnet. But Malone got rid of a frequent Trump critic, and so the so called “liberal lean” was being righted. And what Malone wants to see is CNN be more like Fox!
The company that just had to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars for defamation and lying their asses off to the viewers. The same network that was in bed with the Republican Party. These were the people who were doing “actual journalism,” according to Malone.
And the cover for making CNN the new Fox propaganda was to be more “factual” and not liberally baised. So Zaslov hired Chris Licht to be the new CEO of CNN, and Licht talked about how only the FACTS were going to be presented at CNN. I’m paraphrasing here, but Licht insisted that he would not have liars on CNN. Oh no! If it was raining outside, CNN would not have rain denailists on their shows!
But in order to do this, CNN needed to be more centrists and include voices from the conservative end of the political spectrum. This was the sweet spot. And why was this the sweet spot? Because by showing both sides of the political spectrum and only reporting on “the facts,” CNN would be a truth teller. Impartialilty was the key. CNN took no sides in political debates . CNN would let the truth be found out by providing a space for both left and right to battle it out, and the viewers would get to decide where the truth was.
Hey! Doesn’t that sound just like Nagel’s “View to Nowhere” approach? In Nagel’s view, human beings can find new knowledge by taking a step back and being “objective” with regards to learning. For humans, we have our subjective biases that filter our knowledge or understanding of the world. But humans can strive to be objective with all the subjectivity being thrown at us. When given different points of view, a human can objectively analyze subjective points being presented to come up with new knowledge. The stepping back process to objectively view subjective information is known as “nowhere.”
CNN would let the viewers step back and analyze the subjective points of view presented to them without CNN filtering that information. In this way, CNN would be seen as just presenting “facts” and practicing “journalism.” And this would grant CNN new status as an “authority figure.”
Wouldn’t that be GRAND!
Unfortunately, CNN isn’t the only news organization that tries to practice “View To Nowhere” journalism. How many times have I seen this tried on PBS or listend to it on NPR? CBS would regularly do this, if they spared the time for two sides to present anything on their evening news show. And if you are wondering if this authority figure status is bunk, you are not alone.
From Jay Rosen:
(This Q and A was conducted by Jay Rosen, solo. He did the questions and the answers.)
Q. You’ve been using this phrase, “the view from nowhere,” for a while–
A. Yeah, since 2003…
Q. So what do you mean by it?
A. Three things. In pro journalism, American style, the View from Nowhere is a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer. Frequently it places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position “impartial.” Second, it’s a means of defense against a style of criticism that is fully anticipated: charges of bias originating in partisan politics and the two-party system. Third: it’s an attempt to secure a kind of universal legitimacy that is implicitly denied to those who stake out positions or betray a point of view. American journalists have almost a lust for the View from Nowhere because they think it has more authority than any other possible stance.
Q. Well, does it?
A. What authority there is in the position of viewlessness is unearned– like the snooty guy who, when challenged, says, “Madam, I have a PhD.” In journalism, real authority starts with reporting. Knowing your stuff, mastering your beat, being right on the facts, digging under the surface of things, calling around to find out what happened, verifying what you heard. “I’m there, you’re not, let me tell you about it.” Illuminating a murky situation because you understand it better than almost anyone. Doing the work! Having a track record, a reputation for reliability is part of it, too. But that comes from doing the work.
Q. Who gets credit for the phrase, “view from nowhere?”
A. The philosopher Thomas Nagel, who wrote a very important book with that title.
Q. What does it say?
A. It says that human beings are, in fact, capable of stepping back from their position to gain an enlarged understanding, which includes the more limited view they had before the step back. Think of the cinema: when the camera pulls back to reveal where a character had been standing and shows us a fuller tableau. To Nagel, objectivity is that kind of motion. We try to “transcend our particular viewpoint and develop an expanded consciousness that takes in the world more fully.”
But there are limits to this motion. We can’t transcend all our starting points. No matter how far it pulls back the camera is still occupying a position. We can’t actually take the “view from nowhere,” but this doesn’t mean that objectivity is a lie or an illusion. Our ability to step back and the fact that there are limits to it– both are real. And realism demands that we acknowledge both.
Q. So is objectivity a myth… or not?
A. One of the many interesting things Nagel says in that book is that “objectivity is both underrated and overrated, sometimes by the same persons.” It’s underrated by those who scoff at it as a myth. It is overrated by people who think it can replace the view from somewhere or transcend the human subject. It can’t.
Q. You are very critical of the View from Nowhere in journalism. It’s almost a derisive term for you.
A. That’s true. I let my disdain for it show.
Q. Why?
A. Because it has unearned authority in the American press. If in doing the serious work of journalism–digging, reporting, verification, mastering a beat–you develop a view, expressing that view does not diminish your authority. It may even add to it. The View from Nowhere doesn’t know from this. It also encourages journalists to develop bad habits. Like: criticism from both sides is a sign that you’re doing something right, when you could be doing everything wrong.
When MSNBC suspends Keith Olbermann for donating without company permission to candidates he supports– that’s dumb. When NPR forbids its “news analysts” from expressing a view on matters they are empowered to analyze– that’s dumb. When reporters have to “launder” their views by putting them in the mouths of think tank experts: dumb. When editors at the Washington Post decline even to investigate whether the size of rallies on the Mall can be reliably estimated because they want to avoid charges of “leaning one way or the other,” as one of them recently put it, that is dumb. When CNN thinks that, because it’s not MSNBC and it’s not Fox, it’s the only the “real news network” on cable, CNN is being dumb about itself.
But this didn’t stop Licht from employing this flawed epistemological tool. Besides, it gives cover to bad journalism, which CNN practiced during Trump’s Town Hall. This was supposed to be an event that showcased a “View To Nowhere” journalism. Instead, Trump’s Town Hall was a full on rush to give a right wing extremist pathological liar and indicted politician a platform to spew more disinformation and humiliate CNN.
And guess who supposedly loved this event, besides Trump? David Zaslov for one!
But in the year prior to the Atlantic piece, Zaslav had insisted, publicly and privately, that Licht was doing great, and that his head-to-the-middle strategy was the right way to go. Days after the Trump town hall, Zaslav told investors that CNN was on the rise, due to the fact that it was now committed to showing “both sides” and courting Republicans. “Chris is rebuilding the network,” he said. “It’s going to take some time ... We’re making real progress on that.”
But the final straw for Zaslov was The Atlantic interview that Licht gave. Not the fact that the entire “both sides” media strategy was a bust. And Zaslov gave the game away again by saying he was trying to court Republicans.
They already have Fox to go to you big damn dummie.
So now that Licht is gone, will things change? See the above by Zaslov to answer that question. There will be more town hall events and more firings of anyone who disagrees with this media strategy.
Anyway, we have a flawed epistemological tool being employed to cover a really cynical move by a right wing billionaire to push more right wing BS on the American people.
