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A couple of Time Warner shareholders went after CNN CEO Jeff Bewkes Thursday in LA at a Time Warner shareholders meeting [...] David Almasi, the Veep of the National Center for Public Policy Research1, a conservative communications and research foundation, is in LA to question Bewkes. Both Almasi and President David Ridenour are Time Warner shareholders.
[...] “Mr. Bewkes, we have urged you many times to make CNN more objective,” Almasi said in his statement. “You have admitted to us in 2014 the need for more balance. We praised you last year after CNN President Jeffrey Zucker also acknowledged this and acted on the need for more diverse views. But bias is apparently worse than ever. As shareholders, we are concerned about the repetitional risk to our investment in Time Warner as CNN appears to be a key player in the war against the Trump presidency.”
Almasi cited a Media Research Center2 study of CNN programing for 14 hours and 27 minutes of news coverage back on May 12. The report concluded that all but 68 minutes were devoted to Trump with 96 guests out of 123 being negative.
[...] “I’m inquiring about CNN’s bias and our return on investment,” Almasi continued in his statement. “Half of the American public – which includes potential and current CNN viewers – voted for Trump last November and supports his agenda. CNN acts as if it is part of the anti-Trump resistance. Are you willing to lose viewers, possibly forever, because of the bias?”
Almasi even threatened Bewkes, saying that Media Research Center plans to alert advertisers about news programs that “peddle smear, hate and political extremism.”
He asked Bewkes, “Are you concerned about advertisers leaving CNN? Will you continue to ignore our appeals for objectivity at the risk to our investment in Time Warner?”
Source: The Daily Caller
1The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a self-described conservative think tank in the United States. In February 2014, at Apple Inc.'s annual shareholder meeting, NCPPR proposed Apple "disclose the costs of its sustainability programs" was rejected by 97% vote. The NCPPR representative argued that Apple's decision to have all of its power come from greens sources would lower shareholders' profits.
2The Media Research Center (MRC) is a politically conservative content analysis organization based in Reston, Virginia, founded in 1987 by activist L. Brent Bozell III. Its stated mission is to "prove—through sound scientific research—that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values."
(Score: 1) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday June 20 2017, @04:00PM (5 children)
Then I'll rephrase...
If it were, you wouldn't care about Bill O'Reilly, Chris Wallace, or Unknown Person bringing coverage to you. If it were, you'd be getting news and not propaganda from ANY domestic American news outlet.
Most importantly: If it were, the advertisers would be *paying* for objectivity to occur - and we know they DON'T. Which you didn't answer.
Or do you think Fox News is currently on top of the heap because they're Fair and Balanced? And oh-so-objective? Sorry, I don't.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 20 2017, @04:17PM (4 children)
OK cool. If you want to not make money of 321 million people, I strongly encourage the establishment to continue its status quo.
If someones stuck in a hole and their response to "stop digging" is "no I like it down here and I'm gonna keep digging" well, have fun with that. Workin great, right?
There's no free market, there's a microscopic fringe essentially nobody watches. Doesn't have to be a fringe to be news. Does have to be a fringe to remain unwatched yet pure propaganda.
Lets try an analogy. Lets say you put on a Star Trek Convention and only approx 0.5% of the country cares. Some businessman points out, "yah know, if you ditched the sci fi and put in some country music and beer taps you could probably get more than a rounding error of the culture and community to pay attention to your little summer festival". Actually its even weaker than that, a businessman points out that "yah know, if you didn't have security phaser anyone wearing a star WARS tee shirt, you'd make a little more money"
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 20 2017, @04:26PM
That analogy is awful. I came up with a better one.
You're running a Star Trek Convention and trying to sign up marketplace people to turn gold pressed latinum into fake tribbles while cutting you some rent.
Oddly enough there seems little demand for Harry Potter sellers at your Trek convention. WTF man? Are they cheap? They're just not interested? Oh surely the problem is there are none, none at all, everybody loves Trek because, hey, Star Trek Convention! Nobody should sell Harry Potter merchanidise, there's no market, look at the Trek convention stats for Harry Potter merchandise...
(Score: 1) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday June 20 2017, @05:55PM (2 children)
Your (or rather TFA's investors) assumption seems to be that the 321 million people would suddenly come around and start watching CNN if only they'd get more "objective." Or a greater fraction than those that currently are. Or that being more objective would effectively be stopping digging a deeper hole.
News has become entertainment, whether one likes it or not. (If it was ever anything but that in the first place anyway.) Trying to make it less entertainment and more factual (which is what I presume the cry about "objectivity" is,) is not what will give the shareholders more value (presumably why they're griping.) That entertainment needs perspective because, sadly, news plainly delivered doesn't sell.
In both of your convention analogies, as far as I can follow them, sure you can do lots of things to try to broaden interest. Comic Con has done so quite successfully - anyone else remember when it was pretty solidly just about Comics? But this, to me, seems more like the Comic Con people are being accused of not being Comic-y enough and they need to "get back to" just talking about Marvel and DC's print titles and kill all those stupid panels about Rogue One, Fantastic Beasts, and Guardians 2. Because that'll surely bring more crowds in!
Finally, it is *all* about the advertisers, sadly. Which yes, ratings plays a huge part of the equation in. I'm still not following why the thought is that "more objectivity" will put more eyeballs in front of their screens. History does not, sadly, bear that out.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:19PM (1 child)
The way I read it is you're analyzing a fringe extremist hobby like its mainstream.
I'm looking at it as a fringe extremist activity. Those Never increase attendance by going more extreme. Going more extreme is how they corner their odd little corner of the market.
Yeah I'll tell you what else doesn't sell, infotainment. Nobody watches that stuff. "TV News" used to be dominant in culture. Now nobody watches it.
On one hand I do have to agree that the nightly news decades ago had better ratings because of fewer choices. On the other hand that can't be entirely it.
Because implementing the opposite has led to declining graphs for some decades now? OK fine you can claim that going partisian infotainment has slowed the inevitable decline. But if your assets are trending toward zero maybe thats the exact right time to pivot. If you know looking at the graph that your doors will close in a decade, doing almost anything other than BAU seems responsible and can't provide much worse of an outcome.
(Score: 1) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:10PM
Good points!
This sig for rent.