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posted by n1 on Tuesday June 20 2017, @02:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the make-media-great-again dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

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."


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  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday June 20 2017, @06:45PM (2 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday June 20 2017, @06:45PM (#528641)

    Nope, it ain't even about ratings in any sort of general sense. The Legacy Media business model is to lose money, something they do wonderfully. Seriously, NBC News is not a profit center and NBC has always considered it a "public service" to operate it at a loss. Same for CBS News, ABC News, Time Warner News (aka CNN), The Washington Post (aka Jeff Bezos's Blog / Lobbying firm), The NYT, etc. They consider making profits to be dirty, seeing as they are all communists this makes perfect sense. FNC was the exception, driving the lion's share of profits for News Corp but the Murdoch kids have announced their plan to 'correct' this defect and make it more like CNN, i.e. a money pit operated for prestige and influence for the rest of the media empire.

    It is about influence, and influence among the 'right' people at that. Morning Joe's ratings usually can't be found on national charts but in the Acela Corridor all the 'right' people do tune in so his show is considered highly influential and a 'hit.' Bill Oreilly and now Tucker Carlson can dominate their prime time time slot across all of cable, not just cable news but their demos are all wrong and are thus failures and not at all important. It ain't about ratings. And as everything becomes political pure ratings (as in number of sets or eyeballs) aren't as important in entertainment, it is about the 'right' viewers, whether a show is delivering an 'important' message, etc.

    To the public naming and shaming outfits like MRC do is helpful, in that the more the public realizes the legacy media is a lie the better, their stated goal is insane. They are demanding CNN act like a profit centered capitalist corporation when they have never even hinted they want to be such a thing. And they never will. They may lose so much ratings that cable systems buck the bundle and drop them or relegate them to tiered hell but they will happily go down with all banners flying the hammer and sickle sure in the knowledge they will all have jobs waiting at MSNBC if they do. Then Fox, etc. until the last legacy TV network fails.

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  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 20 2017, @08:59PM (#528717)

    Would you like some milk with those Nut-O-s?

    CNN was not profit motivated when owned by Ted Turner, it has since changed course into a profit machine and has gone downhill as a news agency.

    Of COURSE you leave Fox News as the only bastion of hope... woweee you need a breakfast alternative. Maybe something with more fiber to work the bullshit out of your system.

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:52PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday June 20 2017, @10:52PM (#528757)

    The Legacy Media business model is to lose money, something they do wonderfully. Seriously, NBC News is not a profit center and NBC has always considered it a "public service" to operate it at a loss. Same for CBS News, ABC News, Time Warner News (aka CNN), The Washington Post (aka Jeff Bezos's Blog / Lobbying firm), The NYT, etc. They consider making profits to be dirty, seeing as they are all communists this makes perfect sense.

    Actually, the reason the TV networks used to be like that back in the day was that in order to get FCC licenses the government required them to provide news coverage as a public service. There has never been a lot of money in straight reporting, so NBC, CNN, and ABC all basically accepted having a news department as a cost of doing business (PBS, of course, has never been a profitable organization, because that's not its role as a non-profit).

    What has been determined by lots of news outlets is that while fact-based reporting is not profitable, pure opinion that the viewer happens to agree with can be. Fox News runs on this to make money from conservative folks. So does MSNBC, to make money from liberal folks. So does CNN, pretending to be the "moderate" option to make money from people who don't actually have a political philosophy. Not one of them is truly informing anybody of anything.

    In more recent years, this has extended to web "reporting" as well.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.