CNN Cancels Crossfire

blonde rser writes "Three months after Jon Stewart appeared on (and lambasted) CNN's Crossfire the Globe and Mail reports that CNN is dumping Tucker Carlson. It appears that Crossfire is being canceled and Carlson's contract is not being renewed. As to whether Stewart's opinion had any affect on the decision there is this quote from Jonathan Klein, CEO of CNN's US network: 'I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp.'"

Comments

How did Carlson land that job anyways?

[HolyCoitus]

I don't know a single person that likes him, regardless of their political interests. If he were on Slashdot, he'd have been modded -1 flamebait immediately and never thought of again.

I'm curious though. What's his background that earned him the spot on a show like Crossfire? He had to have done something that made him in the spotlight in some way before that I would assume?

Re:How did Carlson land that job anyways?

[xanderwilson]

In today's world of pundits, you don't need to have a background in hard news research and fact-checking. You just have to have an opinion and, preferably, a marketable personality. I'd like to see more seasoned journalists do news analysis, rather than people on all sides with their minds decided before they collect the facts to back their opinions up.

Alex.

Re:How did Carlson land that job anyways?

[HolyCoitus]

I agree with you completely. I take it a step in a different direction though, and would prefer a lot of people with questionable credentials coming to a conclusion on an issue. Something such as Slashdot mainly.

Takes your mind down more interesting paths and forces you to question things.

Was Carlson's personality something taht anyone could market though? Was he presented as an asshole to make it so that people from "the left" would watch to hope he gets his ass handed to him?

Re:How did Carlson land that job anyways?

[Qwaniton]

Was Carlson's personality something taht anyone could market though? Was he presented as an asshole to make it so that people from "the left" would watch to hope he gets his ass handed to him?

I wouldn't be surprised. Crossfire is not a political analysis or debate show. It's a performance show. It's entertainment. Civil, objective and rational debate is not the point of Crossfire.

Civil debate is great and all, but it's not entertainment. It's not exciting. It doesn't reach out to you, Joe Viewer, and grab you. It doesn't have you on the edge of your seat. It simply doesn't make Great Television.

People watch Crossfire for the personalities and the performance. It's as much as a performing art as anything else. It's essentially the performance art of rhetoric. And it's quite entertaining.

That's why I listen to Rush Limbaugh, after all. I may disagree with half the things he says, but I'm still a dittohead. He's one hell of a broadcaster.

quote

[Fr05t]

Jonathan Klein, CEO of CNN's US network: 'I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp.'

Later in the day Klein was herd coughing in the following way "*cou*cock*gh*munch*" as he walked past Carlson.

Thank God they're getting rid of Tucker

[genrader]

I'm a conservative and I absolutely hate that guy. He tries to defend Bush when there is no reason to defend him. I'm a conservative and Bush is an insane president with a socialist agenda. I suppose they only got Carlson on there to make conservatives look retarded.

Re:Thank God they're getting rid of Tucker

[(trb001)]

Okay, you have no clue what you're talking about. Bush is about as close to the opposite of a socialist that you can get. Reducing taxes and privitizing social security alone would disprove what you said, but his pro-capitalism tax/corporate agenda go even further. His backing of Medicare is about the only thing socialistic about him.

I mean, really, look at Canada or some European countries for much closer examples of socialism. We're nowhere close and getting further away.

--trb

Re:Thank God they're getting rid of Tucker

[Lord Kano]

I'm a conservative and Bush is an insane president with a socialist agenda.

I'm a conservative, and there are genuine issues that we can differ with the president on but a socialist agenda? Come on man!

LK

Re:Thank God they're getting rid of Tucker

[MikeXpop]

You're kidding right?

Crossfire's purpose is to make Ted Turner more money. That's CNN's purpose. That's about all news' purpose. That's why pretty much all news channels have gotten so horrible over the years. The only news on the television that isn't a sensationalistic joke is Fox News. Fox News, unfortunately, is just as bad or worse because it's purpose is to bring right-wing views and opnions to the people.

I doubt the sincerity of that comment!

[Dr. Spork]

If the CEO of CNN really thought what he said he thought, CNN USA would look very different. I first thought their terrible and deliberately distorted news coverage had to do with their incompetence (or lack of resources). But this isn't true. I've spent a few days watching CNN Europe, and I have to tell you that it is a far better news channel. They actually do balanced and interesting stories, and are generally much less Tucker-Carlson-like. So the crap they're brodcasting into the USA is deliberately dumbed down. They actually have less-dumbed-down versions of all their big stories, but they just don't broadcast them in North America.

I saw Jon Stewart on Crossfire and from what I could gather from his rant, he objected to the institution of Republicans and Democrats yelling slogans from their talking points list, and pretending it's debate... and then pretending that reports like "Democrats claim X; Republicans claim Y" is news. So what if Crossfire is over. Everything that JS freaked out about is absolutely at the foundation of the way CNN reports. Crossfire is just reveals that formula in an especially naked way. So I don't understand how somebody could agree with JS and still be CEO of CNN-USA.

Props to Jon Stewart

[ed333]

We need more people like Jon Stewart to actually say whats on their mind.

Re:AKA "Carlson gets a better, more visible job"

[alex413x]

Hey, we can always hope that JS shows up on that show and owns Carlson there, too.

A parade of human cartoons

[AtariAmarok]

The show became a parade of human cartoons. Novak the duckman. Lord Voldecarville. Pat "Third Reich from the Sun" Buchanan. Let's leave this kind of thing to Warner Bros Daffy vs Bugs cartoons.

I'll be the first to say it...

[bizpile]

...Jon Stewart '08. (Hopefully Lewis Black will be his running mate.)

It's Official

[mshiltonj]

John Stewart -- The Most Powerful Comedian In News.

transcript

[Sogol]

Link to the transcript of John Stewarts appearance on crossfire:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0410/15/cf. 01.html

Re:AKA "Carlson gets a better, more visible job"

[Alomex]

Mod parent down. The poster and the editor did read the article and summarized it properly.

Crossfire was cancelled and Carlson did not get a more visible job. CNN has about twice as many viewers as MSNBC in America

Re:Bowtie

[Marxist Hacker 42]

In more ways than one- if Stewart ends up there- who is of an equal stature for Comedy Central to replace their fake news anchor with? Maybe Mo Rocha (sp? Don't remember his last name) or Candice Bergman, but there isn't anybody I can think of that would do as good of a job as Stewart has done with the fake news.

Re:Tucker on PBS, Jon S

[Lennavan]

This was the funny (yet sad) part about Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire. He clearly admits that his show is a comedy show, duh its on a network called Comedy Central. People don't tune into his show to become informed on the news, they tune in to laugh.

Crossfire does attempt to be a news show and does a terrible job at it. They're on CNN, a news network that people turn on to learn about the news. Go figure?

Stewart was attacked for doing a bad job or reporting the news on his comedy show? I say we blame Stewie on The Family Guy next for not informing me more about civil rights.

Stewart attacked Crossfire for doing a bad job of reporting news on their news show. The sad part is that they, and you, don't seem to understand this.

Re:Bowtie

[bill_mcgonigle]

but there isn't anybody I can think of that would do as good of a job as Stewart has done with the fake news.

I hear Dan Rather is available as of this spring.

(sorry, I couldn't resist)

Re:CNN is dead

[zCyl]

I guess hearing opinions you disagree with is just too much to take, isn't it?

I know, I'm feeding the troll. But I don't have a problem with opinions I disagree with. I have a problem when opinions become news. News should be about reporting facts, investigating, digging for information, and expert analysis. When it becomes opinion from one party line or from two party lines, both are terrible.

Re:Bowtie

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Also the wrong bent- Daily Show is supposed to be the parody of the Cable News Networks, which range from the Centerist CNN to the Rightwing Fox- you need a leftwinger to parody them properly.

misunderstanding steward

[elbarrio]

From what I gather, this is a total misunderstanding of what Jon Stewart was trying to say. As I understood it, he was trying to say that the problem is that we refuse to have real debate. crossfire, as Jon sees it (so I think), engages in theatre, not debate. The criticism of the media is that they fake being even handed, and by doing so don't actually provide meaningful analysis. The interpretation that debate in all forms should go is way off. Debating an issue and reading the party-line propaganda are two completely different things.

Re:Bowtie

[Marxist Hacker 42]

There is no question that Fox News leans to the right, but CNN centrist? Hardly!

The problem with modern American politics, on both sides of the issue, is that if you are on one of the extremes, you're so far from the other side that the center LOOKS like the other side. Talk to a left-wing tree hugger, and CNN is the right wing anti-immigrant hatred network. Talk to a right wingnut- and CNN becomes a bastion of liberal and socialist tendencies. Therefore CNN is indeed the center.

I guess that the daily show wouldn't work if they got someone who was actually funny.

Funny to whom? Humor is way too individual- that's why The Daily Show needs a character like Stewart, who can be NOT funny and still make fun of cable and network news. It's all about subtlety- which is why The Daily Show gets so many intellectual nerds watching it, while everybody else gravitates towards the edutainment they call news on the other channels.