As you may have seen, yesterday I attended and liveblogged the Presidential Forum on Alternative Energy and Global Warming, co-sponsored by Grist, League of Conservation Voters, and other interested organizations. I was joined by many other bloggers in the media section who were blogging on several other sites, including Calitics, HeadingLeft, and MyDD.
Cumulatively, the liveblogging threads on the frontpage of DailyKos, as well as the other sites mentioned, generated over a thousand comments and inspired debate about which of the three candidates in attendance had the best plan for dealing with the most critical issue facing our entire world, especially in light of the recent IPCC report detailing how bad things really are.
So I popped over to CNN last night to see if they had anything to say about the Forum. Find out the exciting coverage below the fold!
Yup. As of around midnight PST, that screencap is what graced the frontpage of CNN. I'd like you to notice an all-pervasive set of themes:
- Disappearances or murders
- Children, whether harmed, murdered or led astray by those scary internets
- Something, anything, having to do with sexually themed crimes, whether it's rape, prostitution, or molestation.
The only political coverage on the main page of CNN--and, not coincidentally, the second most prominent item on the Fox News site as I type this--is the little tempest in a teapot regarding the prince of darkness Novakula's allegations that the Clinton campaign has some sort of information about a tawdry scandal involving Obama. At least CNN has the decency to title its headline "Obama reacts to reports of scandal." Fox News, on the other hand, leads with "Dem fight turning ugly." Fair and balanced, indeed!
But that point aside--that little non-existent mini-scandal is the only political coverage on the latest news section of CNN.com--likely because it was the tawdriest political incident of the day, besides, of course, CNN's atrocious handling (separate links) of the most recent "debate" in Las Vegas--not that you'll expect to find that reported on CNN, of course!
The rest of the "latest news" involves lurid content as described above.
Honestly, CNN, is all of this really news? Or instead, is it sensationalistic garbage that's designed to attract an audience that for some reason have a driving motivation to be scared into believing that they could be the next victim of, oh, whatever lurid detail is under discussion?
I can just picture a news headline in CNN in my mind right now:
Molested children use MySpace to form murder-suicide pact; 2 children still missing!
If such a story were to actually happen, I can bet you that it would not leave the frontpage of CNN even if NASA discovered an asteroid that was about to wipe out all life on Earth in 72 hours.
But when three Democratic Presidential candidates (and no Republican ones even though all were invited, which should be newsworthy in and of itself) get together to present their plans to solve what will likely end up being the greatest challenge of our generation, where is CNN?
crickets
And if you are interested in finding out which candidate has the vision to solve this crisis; whose approach matches most closely with your own views; and even basic questions about which party or candidates cared enough about the issue to devote some time in their busy schedules to discussing it, where do you have to go?
You have to go to the blogosphere for that. Yes, that group of apparently foul-mouthed unreliable, unsourced ranters with no journalism experience. That's right. If you actually want to have a discussion about the issues as opposed to diamonds or pearls, you come to DailyKos, or Calitics, or MyDD, or any one of wonderful sites we have that distribute the news that matters.
If CNN really wants to know why the blogosphere is gaining ground and gaining influence and an increasing number of people think that they and organizations like them are a complete joke, I can give them two very easy answers and explanations:
- Just go ahead and contrast your latest fiasco of a debate in Las Vegas with the stirring, exciting, and very well-moderated and focused debate moderated by our own mcjoan and Jeffrey Feldman at YearlyKos
- check out the blogosphere's coverage of the most crucial issue of our time vs. your coverage of the most crucial issue of our time in the past couple of days.
And then, CNN, ask yourself a question:
If you cared about the issues, where would you get your news from?