CNN Atrocities

I have, and I will continue to rant about CNN's treatment of news and/or journalism. I read the CNN home page mainly to ensure I do not miss 'mainstream media', since I tend to be forced to interact with people whose entire view of the world is derived from such sources.

Still, even in this context, the ineptitude of this "news source" drives me to a semi-uncontrollable need to rant about its coverage. Therefore, if you think I should stop reading CNN's headlines if I don't like them, you should understand that I really have no choice: society is forcing me to stay "informed".

My favorite "CNN Atrocity":


One morning, maybe 9 or 10am EST a few month ago, in the top stories list of headlines was something very close to the effect:

Ford recalls 500,000 vehicles

Interesting. A bit of a black eye for Ford I thought. An hour later, in the same position in their "top headlines", I see the two part headline to the effect:

Ford offers big rebates | Recall

Are you kidding me? Ford offering rebates is a "top story"? That's a commercial, not a news story. Yet CNN decided that this is more important that 1/2 millions vehicles being recalled, or in reality, used this as a sorry excuse to bury the recall story.

Is there anyone out there that doesn't think that someone at Ford called someone at CNN to get this headlines changed? If so, please refrain from contacting me: you clearly need more experience in the world before having an opinion on such matters.

I even suspect that someone at CNN thought they were maintaining some form of journalistic integrity by still including the link to the recall story in the second part of that line. All the while, someone at Ford is smiling with how clever they were in turning a negative news article into a free advertisement platform.