Objectivity is the Word

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April 13, 2010, 11:49 am

CNN Fights Back With ‘Objectivity’ Arguments

By Stuart Elliot


During CNN’s upfronts presentation on Tuesday, HLN personalities weighed in on scandals in the news. From left, Jane Valez Mitchell, Nancy Grace, Joy Behar, AJ Hammer and Robin Meade.
In a presentation to advertisers and agencies on Tuesday morning, executives of CNN indicated how they plan to counter the growing ratings of — and buzz about — the rival Fox News Channel: play up their channel’s identity as an objective source of news.

“Journalism is our core value; it’s who we are,” Greg D’Alba, executive vice president and chief operating officer for advertising sales and marketing, told an audience at the Frederick P. Rose Hall at Time Warner Center. “Good journalism will make the difference.”

Jim Walton, president for CNN Worldwide, part of Time Warner, put it this way: “We’re the only credible, nonpartisan voice left. And that matters.”

Both executives alluded to the recent spate of news articles about CNN’s poor ratings in the first quarter as Fox News, part of the News Corporation, and MSNBC, part of NBC Universal, stay ahead of CNN in prime time.

Mr. Walton referred lightly to “all the great coverage we’ve had” and Mr. D’Alba said that “there’s no way” the complete story was being told about CNN’s performance.

CNN is telling its story as the cable channels continue their series of so-called upfront presentations to Madison Avenue decision-makers. CNN shared the event with its sibling channel, HLN, formerly CNN Headline News, which offers a Fox News-like line-up of evening opinion shows from the likes of Joy Behar and Nancy Grace after a day of news coverage.

Indeed, the HLN part of the presentation was titled “News and Views,” in contrast with the descriptions of CNN as “Our mission, our mandate, is to deliver the best journalism in the world,” said Jonathan Klein, president for CNN U.S. “No bias, no agenda.”

That philosophy “puts us in a category of one,” he added, as CNN’s competitors “have abandoned the field” of objective reporting.

Those competitors were not mentioned by name at any point during the presentation.

There was no mention at any point during the presentation of personalities associated with the rival channels until the end, when Ms. Behar, during a panel of HLN opinion-mongers, made a joke about Glenn Beck.

Rather, the executives parried the competition generically. For instance, in describing a new CNN show with John King, “John King U.S.A.,” Mr. Klein said it was not a partisan opinion show fronted by an opinionated host “who stacks the deck with a bunch of people who agrees with him or her.”

“We will never abandon our core faith in being the sole nonpartisan cable network in this country,” Mr. Klein asserted.

Mr. King was part of a panel that took up a large part of the presentation. It was moderated by Anderson Cooper and also included CNN faces like Wolf Blitzer, Candy Crowley, Roland Martin and Mary Matalin. The latter two sparred several times over political issues.

That was followed by Mr. Anderson in conversation with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the CNN medical correspondent.

The HLN panel, which also devoured a chunk of time, included Nancy Grace and A.J. Hammer. The panelists gave their opinions on “news” events like the Tiger Woods scandal and the legal woes of Michael Jackson’s doctor.

The presentation, which was scheduled from 9 a.m. to 10:30, stretched on until 11 a.m. By then, this reporter had left, unfortunately missing a discussion of the CNN dot-com operations.