We've all been critical of the direction CNN has taken, at least as viewers or former viewers. And everytime we peek in again, we get sicker.
I've uncovered a pretty smart woman climbing up the ladder at CNN who just couldn't take the emphasis on infotainment while the news was being ignored any more. She resigned after completing a one-year fellowship at Harvard (see, I said she was smart.)
On the flip a golden nugget from the CJR Daily Archives.
Rebecca MacKinnon is a research fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. For more than ten years she reported for CNN in China and Japan, working her way up from assistant in the Beijing bureau to bureau chief in Beijing and Tokyo. She currently spearheads the Global Voices blog and posts at North Korea Zone and at her own personal blog, Rconversation.
Thomas Lang: Last year, you took a break from CNN to work on a fellowship at the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard, then resigned [from CNN] shortly thereafter. What prompted your decision not to go back to CNN?
Rebecca MacKinnon: Well, a couple of things. One was that over the year leading up to my resignation I had been growing increasingly frustrated with the direction CNN was going in. [I was] feeling that the ... trend [toward] less interest in serious news was accelerating and the trend towards more infotainment, from anything but a war zone, was also accelerating. I'm neither a war correspondent nor an infotainment news bunny, and I was beginning to wonder whether there was any place for me in international news at the network.
So there was that general feeling that was buttressed by being told things by my boss like, "Your expertise is getting in the way of doing the kind of stories we want to see on CNN," and "We'd like you cover the region more like a tourist." That kind of thing that just made me increasingly question whether my job was any longer consistent with the reasons I'd gone into journalism -- which was not to be an infotainment news bunny.
Let's give some love to MacKinnon. Not every day somebody will throw a shot at the big time because it is intellectually beneath them. And it might give the bona fide news bunnies something to think about and then something to strive for.
By the way, there is a picture of Rebecca on the site and a lot of great observations. Pick your favorite and report back here with a comment if you'd like.