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CNN Fires Producer Over Personal Blog
dangerz writes "CNN has fired one of its producers because of his personal blog. Chez Paziena, the ex-producer, has stated that he started the blog 'mostly to pass the time, hone my writing skills, resurrect my voice a little, and keep my mind sharp following the [brain tumor] surgery.' After a few months, CNN found out about it and ended up letting him go because his 'name was "attached to some, uh, 'opinionated' blog posts" circulating around the internet.'"
Maybe CNN doesn't like the competition scattered independent bloggers are providing to its all-encompassing media empire, and are taking out their anger on one of their own who dared embrace new media?
After a few months, CNN found out about it and ended up letting him go because his 'name was "attached to some, uh, 'opinionated' blog posts" circulating around the internet.'
MORBO DOES NOT FEAR CNN. MORBO WILL BLOG WHATEVER HE LIKES!
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
He what now?
Clear? You call that policy CLEAR?!
If the part in quotes is actually a quote, "non-CNN outlet", then it is indeed very far from clear. If anything, I would argue that it's clearer that a blog *shouldn't* count, since a personal blog is not an "outlet" in the context used (CNN). If he had written the blog for the NY Times, then sure, by all means...
(Disclaimer: I too was once a producer at CNN)
Unfortunately when you're a traditional journalist, any public expression of opinion is about your job...
I feel bad for this gentleman for losing his day job, but, seriously, anybody who works in the mainstream media understands that your boss is quite likely to impose certain limitations on public expressions of your personal opinion. It was only a matter of time before something this guy wrote on his blog ticked off somebody enough that a critical resource would refuse to provide necessary information to CNN. If you think this is crazy, Linda Greenhouse, who covers the Supreme Court for the New York Times, has been under absolute siege just because of who she's married to: Eugene Fidell, an expert on military law who's filed a number of briefs relating to the Guantanamo detainees. Note that nobody has been screaming that Greenhouse is doing a bad job or presenting the facts about Guantanamo in a biased fashion; they're simply claiming that it's impossible for her to do so because she is married to somebody who's a player in that arena. (I should probably note both that Greenhouse is considered the best reporter covering the court, and that in 1989 she was publicly chastised by the NYT for participating in an abortion rights march).
So editors are generally pretty intolerant of reporters who mouth off in a public fashion. The idea is that it's hard enough to create a story that presents the positions of both sides fairly if you're already on the record as saying, for example, that you wish the President could run for a third term. Filtered through that gem, your otherwise fair representation of the positions of all sides might appear to be somewhat slanted.
I'm a little astounded that this fellow didn't adopt an online pseudonym...
Let's try that again: are there any respectable news sources that aren't blatantly anti-conservative? I just looked at the web page for that show, and every story was about which Democrat will be nominated, and how Bush is trying to kill or take over the world. Literally. For example, here are the Monday headlines:
I think I'll stick with The Daily Show, and maybe try BBC World News America. Those can't be any worse than the CNN or Fox jackasses.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
He wasn't a journalist or a reporter, though. He was a producer who reportedly had no real input into the editorial decisions of the program. Would they have fired a camera operator for this? Secretary? The guy who fills the vending machine outside? You really have to draw the line somewhere.
As it stands, though, nobody in the outside world had any idea who this guy was until CNN fired him and told the whole world that he used to be the producer for this show. The very act of trying to cover it up turned them immediately into the bad guy from the view of most of the general public, and immediately cast what would otherwise have been a minor annoyance at best into a PR nightmare. There are no words for that sort of stupidity on the part of CNN's management. If I were in charge of CNN, I'd have the resignation of every single person who signed off on that decision on my desk already. The people responsible for sacking the responsible party have been sacked, and all that.
In my mind, this story just confirms what I've suspected for a while---that CNN is no longer going to even keep up appearances of being an objective news outlet. Anyone with left-leaning opinions need not apply. The whole network is really all about pandering to the Presidential administration in power. With Republicans in the White House, CNN's political coverage is only slightly to the left of Fox News. You can get more balanced reporting by reading Fark. It really saddens me to say that, as just a decade ago, I thought it would be a great place to work. Since then, though, I've watched it go downhill faster than a car with its brakes cut, and at this point, I basically never watch it anymore. That and the whole problem with TV news not paying well enough to attract enough people with the sense to ask the tough questions.... See my rant from a few days ago on that subject....
For those folks who agree with me, here's what you should do: tell everyone you know not to go to CNN's website on February 29th. Let's send a message to CNN that what they did is wrong. Go spread it on the blogosphere.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I love how blogs are a revolutionary new form of news reporting and editorializing that will take on and bring down the increasingly-obsolete mainstream media in a perfect storm of individual private journalism... except when the mainstream media actually starts treating blogs like competitors, and then they're just irrelevant little things that can't possibly compare to the reporting and editorializing done by big news corporations.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
My, what a witty saying. Did you come up with that yourself?
Media has a liberal bias in the sense that it assumes the only axis on which people can have opinions is the "raging neocon" to "bleeding-heart liberal", and of the two, the latter is the better option.
Well, the premise is bullshit, so no wonder the output is no better. Even Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter are evidence of the liberal bias: the only conservatives we hear about are the raving nutcases.
How about good old-fashioned "less government is better" conservatives? How about "lowering government spending and federal debt"? After all you've seen in the past 10 years, why does anybody still believe that it's reasonable to think "bigger government is great, as long as my candidate is in the White House"?
Why do we see "democrats want to give everybody healthcare" and "republicans oppose science", but never "democrats want to increase government spending even more" or "republicans want to protect the environment"? Sure, there are people on both sides who disbelieve each of these, but strangely the democrats always end up looking good, and the republicans always end up looking bad.
Reasonable republicans are virtually ignored by the media, in favor of covering neo-con republicans (who are in power today) and their feckless democratic opponents.
I don't consider myself a Democrat or a Republican, but the media does seem incredibly biased. Both parties have some really good ideas, and some really bad ideas. It does not help the public debate in this country to continuously display only the good ideas from one side, and only the bad ideas from the other.
The dirty little secret of TV news is that producers are the reporters. The people called reporters on television -- the people you see on camera -- typically stand where they're told, don't do the actual interviews, and oftentimes don't even write their own copy. They're essentially actors.
I've worked with on air talent who are very involved in the process, and that includes a lot of the folks at CNN. But to say that producers aren't journalists or reporters is incorrect.
In the US, the first amendment only covers what the government does, not a nongovernmental entity like CNN. Of course, that does not mean that they aren't assholes for firing him, but it doesn't violate constitutional freedom of speech. Emphasis mine:
Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
My, what a witty saying. Did you come up with that yourself?
No, it's a famous line from the Colbert Report.
The Faith-Based idiots in the Whitehouse came up with some real winner lines dissing their critics in the "Reality Based Community". Colbert agreed with them with a lovely little quip: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias". The "Reality Based Community" has joyously embraced the title they were been given.
Reasonable republicans are virtually ignored by the media, in favor of covering neo-con republicans (who are in power today)
Damn, ya got me there....
My mailman is a "reasonable republican", and he has no power whatsoever, but DAMNIT it is Liberal Bias when the Media doesn't give him Equal TV Coverage.
Even Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter are evidence of the liberal bias: the only conservatives we hear about are the raving nutcases.
Excuse me, but citing Fox News of committing Liberal Bias.... wow... just wow. Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter were made into national media personalities BY conservatives FOR conservatives. Liberals did not pick Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter, liberals did not make Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter national media personalities, liberals aren't the audience giving them ratings to stay on TV. The "the media has a liberal bias" people selected and eagerly consume Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter.
How about good old-fashioned "less government is better" conservatives?
Who? Where? Anyone of any actual national importance and power?
I guess maybe there's Ron Paul, but he lies somewhere beween Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter on the radical raving nutcase scale. And aside from him and Kucinich providing comic relief in the presidential race, he has about as much power as my mailman.
The only "less government is better conservatives" I see in power, and the "less government is better conservatives" voting to PUT them in power, are the tax-cut-and-spend idiots. The worst sort of voters who INSIST on being lied to by politicians with fantasy lines and the politicians who will tell those lies to get elected. "Vote for me! I'll cut your taxes to ZERO! And I'll triple military spending making the US the biggest baddest mother on the block and I'll increase farm subsidies and give everyone their very own pet porkbarrel earmark and I'll give Flapjack Idaho the same billions in anti-terror money as NewYorkCity and I'll give a hundred trillion dollars more increasing teh DEA to arrest those damn liberal hippie potheads and I'll spend TWELVEHUNDREDZILLIONBILLION dollars building a 42-million-mile long border fence and I'll hire a guzillion border guards to hold hands from coast to coast keeping those damn brown people out! Taxes are all the Demoncrat's fault and if you elect me I'll spend more More MORE money giving you stuff and all those evil taxes will go away with those evil Demoncrats! NO NEW TAXES! NO TAXES AT ALL! NO TAXES EVER! Oh, and I'll give everyone a $1200 economic stimulus check too! FREE MONEY FOR EVERYONE! Woohoo! And no taxes! No Demoncrats, no taxes!"
Call me when elected conservatives in power - and the conservative voters who put them there - stop PANDERING to each other with "tax cut" chances AND spending increase promises AND living in magic-money fantasy-land.
Why do we see [in the media] "democrats want to give everybody healthcare"
Because that is the the position of the majority of important influential democrat politicians, and the position of the majorty of their voter supporters.
and "republicans oppose science"
Because that is the the position of the majority of important influential republican politicians, and the position of the majorty of their voter supporters.
but never "democrats want to increase government spending even more"
Because, conservative tax-and-spend-liberal fantasies notwithstanding, democrats are not notably any different from republicans on spending.
or "republicans wa
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.